Politics

The Trump administration has abandoned its proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the Drug Enforcement Administration after opposition from gun-rights and gun-control groups, CNN reported on Saturday, citing people briefed on the matter. The reversal comes as the White House seeks Senate confirmation for Robert Cekada, the ATF's deputy director, to serve as permanent director, the report said.

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota, where federal authorities have been conducting a massive immigration enforcement operation, two defense officials said Sunday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans, said two infantry battalions of the Army's 11th Airborne Division have been given prepare-to-deploy orders. The unit is based in Alaska and specializes in operating in arctic conditions.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Sunday it is investigating a group of protesters in Minnesota who disrupted services at a church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently serves as a pastor.

A livestreamed video posted on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, one of the protest's organizers, shows a group of people interrupting services at the Cities Church in St. Paul by chanting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good." The 37-year-old mother of three was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month amid a surge in federal immigration enforcement activities.

The protesters allege that one of the church's pastors — David Easterwood — also leads the local ICE field office overseeing the operations that have involved violent tactics and illegal arrests.

On Monday, two Miami Beach police detectives paid Raquel Pacheco a visit to ask about a critical comment that had been left under one of Meiner’s Facebook posts. Video taken by Pacheco showed officers warning her that her comment — in which she said that Meiner “consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians” — could potentially “incite somebody to do something radical.”

Police said the interaction did not trigger a formal investigation. Nonetheless, it has made national news and prompted swift backlash, including from Pacheco, who retained a civil rights attorney.

In the letter, FIRE’s director of public advocacy, Aaron Terr, urged Miami Beach police to “publicly affirm that the First Amendment protects Pacheco’s post and commit that, going forward, officers will never initiate contact with individuals for the purpose of discouraging lawful expression.”

In his statement Friday, Jones stressed that it was his decision to send detectives to Pacheco’s home. “At no time did the Mayor or any other official direct me to take action,” the chief said.

That these DoJ’s disclosures apparently comprise a drop in the bucket – and have done little to shed light on how Epstein operated with apparent impunity for years – has roiled survivors’ advocates and lawmakers. They include attorney Spencer Kuvin, who has represented dozens of Epstein’s survivors.

“A special master might help relieve the court and the DOJ from sifting through thousands upon thousands of documents,” he said. “Special masters tend to be appointed in serious complex litigation, cases with many parties involving massive amounts data or potential damages.”

Kuvin voiced similar sentiments. “A special master could help impose structure and accountability on a process that has clearly stalled. While a special master cannot invent authority that doesn’t exist, they can force clarity – what is being withheld, why it’s being withheld and whether those justifications actually withstand legal scrutiny,” he said.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Shannon Bream that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not, nor are they planning to, investigate Jonathan Ross—the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis earlier this month.

“We don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody or putting his life in danger,” Blanche, formerly Donald Trump’s personal attorney, said. The Trump administration began asserting immediately after the killing that Good was a “rioter” who committed an “act of domestic terrorism,” continuing a long pattern of responding to deadly tragedies by making baseless and false claims.

“We investigate when it’s appropriate to investigate and that is not the case here, it wasn’t the case when it happened, and it’s not the case today,” Blanche insisted. “If circumstances change, and there’s something that we do need to investigate around that shooting or any other shooting, we will,” he said, adding, “but we are not going to bow to pressure from the media, bow to pressure from politicians.”

Video in article

Major labor unions in Minnesota are supporting the call, including Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, CWA Local 7250, and St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28 — and organizers expect this list to grow. Faith in Minnesota, a faith-based social justice organization, has also joined the call. Minnesota has a history of joint, coalitional action among community groups, worker centers and unions.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/40655145

Source

Photo by Pierre Lavie. Yes this is me. And I threw my Leica. It landed on the bass plate with hardly a scratch. Another photographer grabbed it along with my phone and I was able to track him later. I was held face down tear gas deployed right in front of me and pepper sprayed directly into the eye.

-- John Abernathy

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor said Friday that a judge lacks the authority to appoint a neutral expert to oversee the public release of documents in the sex trafficking probe of financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer was told in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton that he must reject a request this week by the congressional cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act to appoint a neutral expert.

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, say they have “urgent and grave concerns” about the slow release of only a small number of millions of documents that began last month.

In a filing to the judge they said they believed “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

The new policy applies to pending scientific publications co-authored by employees in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which conducts research on crop yields, invasive species, plant genetics and other agricultural issues.

The USDA instructed employees to stop agency researchers from collaborating on or publishing papers with scientists from “countries of concern,” including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

But the agency is also vetting scientists from nations not considered “countries of concern” before deciding whether USDA researchers can publish papers with them. Employees are including the names of foreign co-authors from nations such as Canada and Germany on lists shared with the department’s Office of Homeland Security, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. That office leads the USDA’s security initiatives and includes a division that works with federal intelligence agencies. The records don’t say what the office plans to do with the lists of names.

The Trevor Project, known for its hotline for LGBTQ+ youth, received $45 million from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025, the organization said Monday.

The gift is the largest in the organization's history but also a major boon following years of management turmoil, layoffs and the loss of significant federal funding over the summer.

"I literally could not believe it and it took some time. I actually gasped," said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, when they were notified of Scott's gift.

Scott, whose fortune largely comes from her ex-husband Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, gave more than $7 billion to nonprofits in 2025, but this gift to The Trevor Project was not included among the donations she disclosed on her website in December. Scott previously gave The Trevor Project $6 million in 2020.

The Department of Education said Friday it will temporarily delay forced collections on federal student loans. The pause applies to collection efforts such as Administrative Wage Garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program.

“The Department determined that involuntary collection efforts such as Administrative Wage Garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program will function more efficiently and fairly after the Trump Administration implements significant improvements to our broken student loan system," said Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent.

Friday’s announcement appears to mark a reversal in policy. The department began sending wage garnishment notices earlier this month, the first step in a process that could have automatically deducted up to 15% of a borrower’s paycheck. About 1,000 notices had been sent to borrowers in default, representing a small fraction of the more than 5 million borrowers who have defaulted on their federal student loans.

Spanberger, who led in fundraising throughout the race, won a decisive 15-point victory in November after a campaign focused on the cost of living and the impact of the Trump administration's federal cuts in Virginia. Democrats see her victory as an early test case of the party's emerging message on "affordability," which they are expected to deploy across the country in this year's midterms.

Economic concerns were at the forefront of her victory speech in November. But Spanberger also paid tribute to the Virginia women in politics before her, including Barbara Johns, a Black teenage activist who led a 1951 school walkout to protest school segregation. The walkout led to a legal case that was later folded into the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education that ultimately desegregated American public schools.

"She showed us that no matter your age, you can be part of the change and the progress that you want to see here in Virginia and across the nation," Spanberger said in her speech. "We are a nation founded on ideas, but we are a country where it is up to us, the citizens, who must put those ideas into action."

The US has seized a sixth tanker in the Caribbean Sea in its ongoing efforts to control exports of Venezuelan oil, officials say.

The vessel, Veronica, was boarded in a predawn operation "without incident" as it was defying President Donald Trump's "quarantine of sanctioned vessels", said the US military.

"The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully," the Southern Command said.

Since the US military strikes on Venezuela and seizure of its president Nicolás Maduro this month, Trump has said he plans to tap into the country's huge oil reserves.

"The Veronica is the latest tanker operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean," US Southern Command said in a post on social media.

Thursday was the final day to select an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan across much of the country, as the expiration of federal subsidies drives up health costs and lawmakers remain locked in a debate over how to address the issue.

That’s when the open enrollment window ends in most states for plans that start in February. About 10 states that run their own marketplaces have later deadlines, or have extended them to the end of the month to give their residents more time.

The date is a crucial one for millions of small business owners, gig workers, farmers, ranchers and others who don’t get their health insurance from a job and therefore rely on marketplace plans. A record 24 million Americans purchased Affordable Care Act health plans last year.

But this year, their decisions over health coverage have been more difficult than usual as clarity over how much it will cost is hard to come by. And so far, enrollment is lagging behind last year’s numbers — with about 22.8 million Americans having signed up so far, according to federal data.

A federal judge Thursday cleared the way for a New York offshore wind project to resume construction, a victory for the developer who said a Trump administration order to pause it would likely kill the project in a matter of days.

District Judge Carl J. Nichols, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled construction on the Empire Wind project could go forward while he considers the merits of the government’s order to suspend the project. He faulted the government for not responding to key points in Empire Wind’s court filings, including the contention that the administration violated proper procedure.

Norwegian company Equinor owns Empire Wind. Spokesperson David Schoetz said they welcome the court’s decision and will continue to work in collaboration with authorities. It’s the second developer to prevail in court against the administration this week.

San Jose will prohibit federal immigration activity at dozens of city properties and vacant lots.

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using 11 city garages and parking lots, as well as the parking areas of 75 community centers and libraries as staging areas or operational bases.

The city’s policy comes on the heels of Santa Clara County passing a similar policy to block ICE from using county-owned vacant lots, garages and other spaces for immigration enforcement. The city and county’s plan is part of a spreading, national movement to freeze ICE agents out of certain areas after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an Oct. 6 executive order laying out similar rules.

“We are sending a bold and unmistakable message: City property exists to serve our residents, not to facilitate federal actions that undermine community trust or public safety,” District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who led the effort, said at the council meeting. “I do want to acknowledge that this policy has yet to be challenged in the court of law, and there are questions about enforcement. That being said, just as we see the executive branch of our federal government expanding beyond its historical role to target our residents, so should we, in order to defend those we love and call our neighbors.”

Matt Pottinger, who served as a senior White House Asia advisor during Trump's first term, told a congressional hearing that the administration is on the "wrong track" on AI and that its decision to allow the chip sales will damage its goal of winning the AI race.

Selling H200s to China "will supercharge Beijing's military modernization, enhancing capabilities in everything from nuclear weapons to cyber warfare, autonomous drones, biological warfare and intelligence and influence operations," he said. "Congress needs to put guardrails in place so that this mistake can't be repeated," he added.

Some Republican lawmakers echoed his concerns, without explicitly condemning the policy change. "They steal so much intellectual property from this country but we don't have to sell it to them," Congressman Michael McCaul said, without referencing H200s specifically.

National security fears around Beijing's access to American AI chips had prompted the Biden administration to bar sales of the prized semiconductors to China.

A federal court in California on Wednesday refused to block new congressional maps approved by voters last year, clearing the way for the state to use them in upcoming elections.

The Justice Department and Republican challengers sued to stop the maps from taking effect, arguing they amounted to an unconstitutional redistricting effort.

However, a key factor in the court’s decision not to block the maps was that they were approved directly by voters through a ballot measure in November.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed the new maps after Texas undertook a similar redistricting effort aimed at boosting Republican seats, praised the court’s decision.

“Republicans’ weak attempt to silence voters failed," Newsom said. "California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 – to respond to Trump’s rigging in Texas – and that is exactly what this court concluded.”

A website dedicated to leaking personal information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents was reportedly subject to a cyber attack that its founder believes may have originated in Russia.

Dominick Skinner, a Netherlands-based immigration activist, told The Daily Beast that his website, ICE List, came under cyberattack Tuesday evening after the publication reported Skinner planned to release personal information, obtained through a whistleblower, about thousands of employees.

The attack, known as a Direct Denial of Service, is when a perpetrator seeks to disrupt access to a network or service by flooding it with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload the system.

Skinner told The Daily Beast that a massive number of IPs began accessing the website and a large amount of the traffick appeared to come from Russia – leading the founder to speculate the attack originated there.

The US supreme court on Wednesday revived a lawsuit by a Republican congressman in Illinois that challenges a state law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if they are received after election day.

The lawsuit from Mike Bost was viewed by Donald Trump-aligned conservatives as an avenue to continue attacks on mail-in voting. Bost argued that the Illinois law allowing ballots to be counted up to two weeks after election day if they are postmarked by the deadline unconstitutionally allows an extension of the election period.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 7-2 decision, with two of the court’s liberal justices dissenting.

The Trump administration sent shockwaves through the U.S. mental health and drug addiction system late Tuesday, sending hundreds of termination letters, effective immediately, for federal grants supporting health services.

Three sources said they believe total cuts to nonprofit groups, many providing street-level care to people experiencing addiction, homelessness and mental illness, could reach roughly $2 billion. NPR wasn't able to independently confirm the scale of the grant cancellation. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) didn't respond to a request for clarification.

Federal officials are reinstating hundreds of U.S. health workers who were laid off last year from a small health agency that aims to protect workers.

In April, President Donald Trump’s administration gutted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, where scientists, engineers and others conduct research and recommend ways to prevent work-related injury, illness, disability and death.

Government officials laid off close to 900 of NIOSH’s 1,000 employees. The layoffs were part of the Republican president’s remaking of the federal workforce led by then-adviser Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, but they drew harsh rebukes from firefighters, coal miners, medical equipment manufacturers and a range of others.

Some employees were brought back last year amid legal challenges and political pressure, including those who staffed a health monitoring program for miners in West Virginia. But now all the terminations have been rescinded, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents workers at NIOSH and parts of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The warrant says the search was related to an investigation into a system engineer and information technology specialist for a government contractor in Maryland who authorities allege took home classified materials, the Post reported. The worker, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, was charged earlier this month with unlawful retention of national defense information, according to court papers. He has not been charged with sharing classified information, and he has not been accused in court papers with leaking.

Perez-Lugones, who held a top secret security clearance, is accused of printing classified and sensitive reports at work. In a search of his Maryland home and car this month, authorities found documents marked “SECRET,” including one in a lunchbox, according to court papers.

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on Wednesday. The Washington Post said Wednesday that it was monitoring and reviewing the situation. An email seeking comment was sent to lawyers for Perez-Lugones, who is expected to appear in court on Thursday for a detention hearing.

First Amendment groups expressed alarm at the search, saying it could chill investigative journalism that holds government officials to account.

The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia.

The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the countries affected in accordance with a broader order issued in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges” in the U.S.

The suspension, which will begin Jan. 21, will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant visas, or temporary tourist or business visas, who make up the vast majority of visa seekers. Demand for non-immigrant visas is expected to rise dramatically in the coming months and years due to the upcoming 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics both of which the U.S. will host or co-host.