Trump

Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage after United States Senator Alex Padilla of California was roughly removed from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) news conference, then forced to the ground and handcuffed.

A video of the incident shows Padilla appearing to interrupt a Thursday news conference in Los Angeles held by DHS chief Kristi Noem.

“I am Senator Alex Padilla,” he said, stepping forward as Noem spoke. “I have a question for the secretary.”

But he never got a chance to ask the question. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and were pushing him out of the conference room. A mobile phone video shot by a member of Padilla’s staff showed the senator yelling, “Hands off,” as he was escorted into an adjacent hallway.

Agents ultimately forced him to the ground, as Padilla protested he could not keep his hands behind his back as requested and lay his body flat at the same time. One FBI agent then stood in front of the camera and ordered the staffer to stop recording.

The senator’s office has said Padilla is currently not detained. In a statement, it explained that Padilla had hoped to question Noem and General Gregory Guillot about the US military deployment against protesters in Los Angeles.

“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” his office said in a statement.

“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference. He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents.”

What just happened to @SenAlexPadilla is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous.

He is a sitting United States Senator.

This administration’s violent attacks on our city must end.pic.twitter.com/qbh9ZPE8i9

— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 12, 2025

Padilla himself held a news conference afterwards, where he drew a parallel between his rough treatment and the immigration raids happening under the administration of President Donald Trump.

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla told reporters.

The recent protests in Los Angeles came in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, which has targeted undocumented workers at places such as the Home Depot hardware store chain.

Trump has since responded to those protests by deploying nearly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have called an illegal use of military power against civilians.

On Thursday, Padilla’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate rushed to voice their support after the incident.

“I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”

Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida later shot a video showing Democrats walking to Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office to call for action.

“There must be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This is not normal,” Frost wrote.

On social media, however, DHS accused Padilla of engaging in “disrespectful political theatre”. It argued that the senator had not identified himself as he “lunged” towards Noem, something that appears to be contradicted by video of the incident.

DHS said Noem met Padilla after the news conference for 15 minutes.

California officials have accused Trump of provoking tensions in the state by sending the military to crack down on the protests, some of which turned violent but have already started to ease.

The last time a president deployed the National Guard in a state over the objections of a governor was in 1965, to protect civil rights protesters from violence in segregated Alabama.

Governor Gavin Newsom has since sued the Trump administration to block the use of US military might outside of federal sites, calling it a step towards “authoritarianism”.

Earlier this week, Padilla said that Trump’s immigration raids were “terrorising communities, breaking apart families and putting American citizens in harm’s way”.

Trump has suggested that he could have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he could declare martial law if the protests continue. He also described the protesters as “animals” and “a foreign enemy”, framing them as part of a wider “invasion” that justifies emergency powers.

“If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you,” Newsom said in a social media post that showed a picture of Padilla being held on the ground by three agents.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has warned that there is a “chance of massive conflict” in the Middle East, confirming that an Israeli attack on Iran is “possible”.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said he would “love to avoid the conflict” and suggested that the US would like Israel to hold off on plans to strike Iran’s nuclear sites while Washington and Tehran continue their negotiations.

“I want to have an agreement with Iran. We’re fairly close to an agreement … I’d much prefer an agreement,” the US president said.

“As long as I think there is an agreement, I don’t want them [the Israelis] going in because I think that would blow it – might help it actually, but it also could blow it.”

Yet, Trump said that an Israeli attack “could very well happen” without elaborating whether the US would participate or assist in any strikes.

His comments came a day after the US pulled some of its diplomats from the region and put its embassies on high alert amid reports of a possible Israeli attack on Iran.

“There’s a chance of massive conflict,” Trump said.

“We have a lot of American people in this area. And I said: We’ve got to tell them to get out because something could happen soon, and I don’t want to be the one that didn’t give any warning, and missiles are flying into their buildings. It’s possible.”

Later on Thursday, the US president reiterated his commitments to diplomacy with Iran. “My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran,” he wrote in a social media post. “They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.”

Nuclear talks

US and Iranian officials have held several rounds of talks since April to reach a nuclear deal to avert war.

Trump’s stated position is that Iran will never be allowed to obtain nuclear bombs.

Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, but it stresses that it has a right to domestically enrich uranium – a process of altering the uranium atom to produce nuclear fuel.

But US officials have suggested that Iran must give up its enrichment capabilities to ensure that it cannot militarise its nuclear programme.

Despite the apparent impasse, the talks have continued. US and Iranian officials are scheduled to hold a sixth round of negotiations in Oman on Sunday.

Trump previously expressed optimism about the chances of reaching an agreement.

But tensions spiked in recent days.

Earlier this week, Iran said it obtained a trove of secret documents on Israel’s own undeclared nuclear arsenal.

While Israel has not publicly said that it will attack Iran, the US move to partially evacuate its embassy in Baghdad and pull personnel from diplomatic posts across the Middle East on Wednesday raised concerns that violence could break out.

Moreover, the United Nations nuclear watchdog (IAEA) passed a resolution, put forward by the US, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, on Thursday that accused Iran of failing to comply with its nuclear obligations.

Tehran forcefully rejected the measure, accusing Washington and its allies of politically exploiting the international body.

During his first term, in 2018, Trump nixed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against its economy.

Since then, the US has been piling sanctions on Iran. Tehran has responded by escalating its nuclear programme.

Iran warns against ‘aggression’

Early in his second term, Trump signed an executive order to tighten sanctions against Iran to choke off the country’s oil exports, particularly to China. But the US president has also stressed repeatedly that he does not want war.

Israel has been claiming for more than 20 years that Iran is on the cusp of obtaining a nuclear weapon.

In recent months, Israeli officials have suggested that they see an opportune moment to strike Iran, after the blows that Tehran’s regional allies suffered last year, including the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Israel has never been stronger and the Iran terror axis has never been weaker,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in February.

Iran has been warning that it would retaliate harshly against any Israeli attack.

“Iran is currently at its highest level of military readiness, and if the United States or the Zionist regime attempts any act of aggression, they will be caught by surprise,” an unidentified Iranian official told Press TV on Thursday.

It is unclear whether Israel has the military power to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, built deep underground and inside mountains, without direct US involvement – the billions of dollars in military aid that the US gives Israel every year notwithstanding.

Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza in October 2023, Iran and Israel have exchanged several rounds of attacks.

Los Angeles has become a military zone. As citywide protests erupted following ICE raids on local immigrant communities, United States President Donald Trump sent Marines and National Guard troops into the city for the first time in decades. How is this show of force turning immigration raids into a national flashpoint?

CONCORD, Calif. — On Saturday, on the streets of Washington, Donald Trump will throw himself a costly and ostentatious military parade, a gaudy display of waste and vainglory staged solely to inflate the president’s dirigible-sized ego.

The estimated price tag: As much as $45 million.

That same day, the volunteers and staff of White Pony Express will do what they’ve done for nearly a dozen years, taking perfectly good food that would otherwise be tossed out and using it to feed hungry and needy people living in one of the most comfortable and affluent regions of California.

Since its founding, White Pony has processed and passed along more than 26 million pounds of food — the equivalent of about 22 million meals — thanks to such Bay Area benefactors as Whole Foods, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s. That’s 13,000 tons of food that would have otherwise gone to landfills, rotting and emitting 31,000 tons of CO2 emissions into our overheated atmosphere.

It’s such a righteous thing, you can practically hear the angels sing.

“Our mission is to connect abundance and need,” said Eve Birge, White Pony’s chief executive officer, who said the nonprofit’s guiding principle is the notion “we are one human family and when one of us moves up, we all move up.”

That mission has become more difficult of late as the Trump administration takes a scythe to the nation’s social safety net.

White Pony receives most of its support from corporations, foundations, community organizations and individual donors. But a sizable chunk comes from the federal government; the nonprofit could lose up to a third of its $3-million annual budget due to cuts by the Trump administration.

“We serve 130,000 people each year,” Birge said. “That puts in jeopardy one-third of the people we’re serving, because if I don’t find another way to raise that money, then we’ll have to scale back programs. I’ll have to consider letting go staff.” (White Pony has 17 employees and about 1,200 active volunteers.)

“We’re a seven-day-a-week operation, because people are hungry seven days a week,” Birge said. “We’ve talked about having to pull back to five or six days.”

She had no comment on Trump’s big, braggadocious celebration of self, a Soviet-style display of military hardware — tanks, horses, mules, parachute jumpers, thousands of marching troops — celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary and, oh yes, the president’s 79th birthday.

Marivel Mendoza wasn’t so reticent.

“All of the programs that are being gutted and we’re using taxpayer dollars to pay for a parade?” she asked after a White Pony delivery truck pulled up with several pallets of fruit, veggies and other groceries.

Mendoza’s organization, which operates from a small office center in Brentwood, serves more than 500 migrant farmworkers and their families in the far eastern reaches of the Bay Area. “We’re going to see people starving at some point,” Mendoza said. “It’s unethical and immoral. I don’t know how [Trump] sleeps at night.”

Certainly not lightheaded, or with his empty belly growling from hunger.

All the food processed at White Pony Express, including these bell peppers, is checked for quality and freshness before distribution.

(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)

Those who work at White Pony speak of it with a spiritual reverence.

Paula Keeler, 74, took a break from her recent shift inspecting produce to discuss the organization’s beneficence. (Every bit of food that comes through the door is checked for quality and freshness before being trucked from White Pony’s Concord warehouse and headquarters to one of more than 100 community nonprofits.)

Keeler retired about a decade ago from a number-crunching job with a Bay Area school district. She’s volunteered at White Pony for the last nine years, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

“It’s become my church, my gym and my therapist,” she said, as pulsing rhythm and blues played from a portable speaker inside the large sorting room. “Tuesdays, I deliver to two senior homes. They’re mostly little women and they can go to bed at night knowing their refrigerator is full tomorrow, and that’s what touches my heart.”

Keeler hadn’t heard about Trump’s parade. “I don’t watch the news because it makes me want to throw up,” she said. Told of the spectacle and its cost, she responded with equanimity.

“It’s kind of like the Serenity Prayer,” Keeler said. “What can you do and what can’t you do? I try to stick with what I can do.”

It’s not much in vogue these days to quote Joe Biden, but the former president used to say something worth recollecting. “Don’t tell me what you value,” he often stated. “Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

Trump’s priorities — I, me, mine — are the same as they’ve ever been. But there’s something particularly stomach-turning about squandering tens of millions of dollars on a vanity parade while slashing funds that could help feed those in need.

Michael Bagby has been volunteering at White Pony for three years, delivering food and training others to drive the nonprofit’s fleet of trucks.

(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)

Michael Bagby, 66, works part time at White Pony. He retired after a career piloting big rigs and started making deliveries and training White Pony drivers about three years ago. His passion is fishing — Bagby dreams of reeling in a deep-sea marlin — but no hobby can nourish his soul as much as helping others.

He was aware of Trump’s pretentious pageant and its heedless price tag.

“Nothing I say is going to make a difference whether the parade goes on or not,” Bagby said, settling into the cab of a 26-foot refrigerated box truck. “But it would be better to show an interest in the true needs of the country rather than a parade.”

His route that day called for stops at a middle school and a church in working-class Antioch, then Mendoza’s nonprofit in neighboring Brentwood.

As Bagby pulled up to the church, the pastor and several volunteers were waiting outside. The modest white stucco building was fringed with dead grass. Traffic from nearby Highway 4 produced an insistent, thrumming soundtrack.

“There are a lot of people in need. A lot,” said Tania Hernandez, 45, who runs the church’s food pantry. Eighty percent of the food it provides comes from White Pony, helping feed around 100 families a week. “If it wasn’t for them,” Hernandez said, “we wouldn’t be able to do it.”

With help, Bagby dropped off several pallets. He raised the tailgate, battened down the latches and headed for the cab. A church member walked up and stuck out his hand. “God bless you,” he said.

Then it was off to the next stop.

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, which began on June 6 in Los Angeles, have spread beyond the California city, across the United States.

This comes days before a military parade scheduled on Saturday in Washington, DC, which marks the US Army’s 250th anniversary. More protests across the US are scheduled on Saturday.

Here is what we know about what is happening and where.

Why are there protests in LA?

On June 6, ICE carried out immigration enforcement raids in LA, in which uniformed ICE agents arrived at various sites in LA in groups of unmarked vehicles, arresting 44 people in a military-style operation.

The operation triggered protests in LA on the same day, and crowds rallied outside a facility where some of the detainees were believed to be held. They were dispersed by police, but protests began again soon after.

US President Donald Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops into the city on June 8, a move condemned as an “illegal takeover” by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who then filed a lawsuit to try to prevent their deployment onto the city streets. The next day, Trump doubled the number of active National Guard troops in the city to 4,000.

On Monday, Trump also ordered 700 marines to be deployed from the Twentynine Palms base east of Los Angeles, describing the city as a “trash heap” that was in danger of burning to the ground.

A federal court hearing about whether or not Trump can legally deploy the National Guard and marines to assist with immigration raids in LA is scheduled for Thursday.

Marines arrived in the city on Tuesday. However, as of Wednesday, they had still not completed training, The Hill reported, citing an unnamed US Northern Command official. The marines are now expected to join the National Guard troops on the streets of LA on Friday.

On Tuesday night, LA Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew in downtown LA, and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) made several arrests.

A sixth day of protests continued on Wednesday. These were mostly peaceful but featured occasional outbursts of violence.

Where have the protests spread to?

By June 9, protests against the ICE raids and Trump’s deployment of the military had spilled over to several other US cities in solidarity with the LA protesters.

By Wednesday, protests had appeared in 12 other cities across several states. Here is the situation in each city:

California

LA is not the only city in California which is experiencing protests.

San Francisco

Soon after the start of the LA protests, a peaceful protest began in San Francisco with demonstrators gathering outside an ICE building on financial hub Sansome Street in the north of the city.

Local media reported that police arrived in riot gear and made arrests.

On Sunday, June 8, San Francisco police arrested about 60 people, and declared the protest an “unlawful assembly”.

On Monday, the San Francisco police released a statement on X, saying the demonstrations had been “overwhelmingly peaceful” but that “two small groups broke off and committed vandalism and other criminal acts”. It said police had made more arrests, without specifying the number of people arrested. Local media reports suggest the number could be above 150.

Local media reported that ICE agents were also arresting migrants in San Francisco. The city’s mayor, Democrat Daniel Lurie, shared this news on X on Monday, saying: “I have been briefed on the ongoing immigration enforcement actions taking place downtown.”

Lurie added: “I have been and will continue to be clear that these federal immigration enforcement tactics are intended to instil fear, and they make our city less safe.”

He stated the police force would not be involved in making immigration arrests. “Under our city’s longstanding policies, local law enforcement does not participate in federal immigration enforcement. Those are our policies, and they make our city safer.”

On Tuesday, 200 protesters rallied outside the San Francisco Immigration Court. Protests were also reported in the nearby city of Oakland.

Santa Ana

On Monday, protests broke out in Santa Ana in Orange County, a largely Mexican-American city just south of LA.

The protests broke out following reports of ICE raids in the city.

Local media reported that several hundred people were protesting outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and court.

The Santa Ana Police Department released a statement on X saying it was aware of the immigration enforcement actions and would not participate in them.

However, the police department posted another statement on X later on Monday saying: “When a peaceful demonstration escalates into rocks, bottles, mortars, and fireworks being used against public service personnel, and property is destroyed, it is no longer a lawful assembly. It is a violation of the law.” Local media reported that several arrests were made.

Police chief Robert Rodriguez said peaceful protesters would be protected but urged residents not to participate in violent protests or vandalism. “Those who participate in unlawful activities will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

On Tuesday, National Guard troops were deployed to Santa Ana and clashes with protesters were reported.

Washington State

Protests have broken out in Seattle, Washington State’s most populous city.

Seattle

About 50 protesters gathered outside the immigration court in downtown Seattle on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters marched downtown from Capitol Hill. According to the Seattle Police Department, this demonstration was mostly peaceful, but some individuals set fire to a dumpster, which prompted police intervention.

Several clashes were also reported between protesters and the police, who arrested eight people for assault and obstruction.

Spokane

Protests also broke out in Spokane, a city towards the eastern side of Washington State.

The police arrested more than 30 protesters and dispersed the crowd using pepper balls, Spokane police chief Kevin Hall told a news conference.

Mayor Lisa Brown imposed a night curfew in the city, which was set to last until 5am (12:00 GMT) on Thursday.

Texas

Protests have broken out in several cities in Texas. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on X on Tuesday: “Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order. Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest.”

San Antonio

On Tuesday, Abbott deployed the National Guard ahead of protests in San Antonio. The city’s mayor, Democrat Ron Nirenberg, said on Wednesday that he had not been informed in advance about the National Guard deployment and had not requested it.

More than 400 protesters gathered outside the city hall on Wednesday in a largely peaceful protest.

Austin

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Monday between the Texas State Capitol building and a federal building which holds an ICE staff office.

More than a dozen people were arrested, Abbott wrote in an X post. The police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse protesters. Some protesters threw rocks at officers and graffitied a federal building, according to local media reports.

Protesters also gathered in the Texas cities of Dallas and Houston.

Denver, Colorado

Protesters gathered outside the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Tuesday. Police said they arrested 18 people when protesters tried to cross Interstate 25, a highway that runs through New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.

Chicago, Illinois

On Tuesday, thousands of protesters gathered near an immigration centre in Chicago and marched downtown, blocking a plaza.

Some 17 people were arrested, according to the police and some clashes between protesters and police were reported. On the same day, a 66-year-old woman was treated for a fractured arm after she was hit by a car that drove through the protest. No other injuries have been reported.

Omaha, Nebraska

On Tuesday morning, immigration authorities raided a meat production plant in Nebraska’s Omaha city, taking dozens of workers away with them in buses.

Local media reported that about 400 people protested against this raid on Tuesday along the 33rd and L streets.

Boston, Massachusetts

On Monday, hundreds of people gathered outside Boston City Hall, calling for the release of trade union leader David Huerta, who was arrested during the LA protests. Huerta was released on Monday afternoon on a $50,000 bond. However, he remains charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony which could result in a maximum of six years in prison, according to the office of the US Attorney.

New York

Thousands of people protested in Lower Manhattan in New York City on Tuesday. The protesters rallied near an ICE facility and federal courts.

On Tuesday, New York police took 86 people into custody. Some 34 of them were charged, while the rest received a criminal court summons. The police took more people into custody on Wednesday, but did not specify how many.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

On Tuesday afternoon, about 150 people gathered outside the Federal Detention Center and marched between the centre and ICE’s headquarters in the city.

After a group defied police orders to disperse from a major road, 15 people were arrested.

Washington, DC

Demonstrators marched past the Justice Department building in the US capital on Monday. The protesters were calling for the release of union leader David Huerta. There have been no reports of violence or arrests.

Will more protests take place?

Yes. On Saturday, protests opposing Trump’s policies in general are planned in nearly 2,000 locations from parks to cities to small towns.

They will coincide with a military parade in Washington, DC, commemorating the US army’s anniversary, and with Trump’s 79th birthday. No protests are planned in Washington, DC.

US president unveils site for applicants to register interest for ‘Trump Card’ granting path to citizenship.

United States President Donald Trump has said his administration is accepting applications for his so-called “Trump Card”, which promises applicants permanent residency for $5m.

Trump made the announcement on Wednesday as he unveiled a new website for prospective applicants to register their interest.

Visitors to TrumpCard.gov are encouraged to submit their name, region and email address, and specify whether they are applying as an individual or a business, in order “to be notified the moment access opens”.

“Thousands have been calling and asking how they can sign up to ride a beautiful road in gaining access to the Greatest Country and Market anywhere in the World,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“It’s called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE WAITING LIST IS NOW OPEN.”

Trump first proposed the residency visa in February, saying his administration would offer wealthy applicants a “gold card” that grants residency and work rights as well as a path to citizenship.

“They’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money, and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people,” Trump said at the time.

In April, Trump displayed a sample visa – a gold-coloured card bearing his visage – to reporters on board Air Force One.

Trump administration officials have suggested that the card will replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa programme, which grants permanent residency to immigrants who invest at least $1.05m in the US, or $800,000 in designated economically distressed areas.

It is unclear what criteria applicants may have to meet apart from the $5m price tag, though the Trump administration has indicated there will be a vetting process.

Under current immigration rules, lawful permanent residents can apply for naturalisation after five years provided they have a basic grasp of English, and they can demonstrate they are of “good moral character” and have an “attachment to the principles and ideals of the US Constitution.”

NEW YORK — As President Trump focuses on global trade deals and dispatching troops to aid his immigration crackdown, his lawyers are fighting to erase the hush money criminal conviction that punctuated his reelection campaign last year and made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president found guilty of a crime.

On Wednesday, that fight landed in a federal appeals court in Manhattan, where a three-judge panel heard arguments in Trump’s long-running bid to get the New York case moved from state court to federal court so he can then seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

It’s one way he’s trying to get the historic verdict overturned.

The judges in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

At turns skeptical and receptive to both sides’ arguments on the weighty and seldom-tested legal issues underlying the president’s request, the judges said they would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling at a later date.

But there was at least one thing all parties agreed on: It is a highly unusual case.

Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall called the president “a class of one” and Judge Susan L. Carney noted that it was “anomalous” for a defendant to seek to transfer a case to federal court after it has been decided in state court.

Carney was nominated to the 2nd Circuit by Democratic President Obama. The other judges who heard arguments, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez, were nominated by Obama and Democratic President Biden, respectively.

The Republican president is asking the federal appeals court to intervene after a lower-court judge twice rejected the move. As part of the request, Trump wants the court to seize control of the criminal case and then ultimately decide his appeal of the verdict, which is now pending in a state appellate court.

Trump’s Justice Department — now partly run by his former criminal defense lawyers — backs his bid to move the case to federal court. If he loses, he could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Everything about this cries out for federal court,” Wall argued.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, argued that Trump’s historic prosecution violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which was decided last July, about a month after the hush money verdict. The ruling reined in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump’s lawyers argue that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, and that they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall argued. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., recently ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown. Trump hasn’t done that, Wu argued.

While “this defendant is an unusual defendant,” Wu said, there is nothing unusual about a defendant raising subsequent court decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling for Trump, when they appeal their convictions. That appeal, he argued, should stay in state court.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim and said he did nothing wrong. It was the only one of his four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump’s lawyers first sought to move the case to federal court following his March 2023 indictment, arguing that federal officers including former presidents have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks he wrote while he was president.

They tried again after his conviction, about two months after the Supreme Court issued its immunity ruling.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Clinton, denied both requests, ruling in part that Trump’s conviction involved his personal life, not his work as president.

Wu argued Wednesday that Trump and his lawyers should’ve acted more immediately after the Supreme Court ruled, and that by waiting they waived their right to seek a transfer. Wall responded that they delayed seeking to move the case to federal court because they were trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan ultimately rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him on Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

The National Guard members deployed to the protests in Los Angeles have been trained to temporarily detain civilians if necessary, according to the troops’ commander.

Nevertheless, as of Wednesday, Major General Scott Sherman clarified that no troops have detained any protester, despite an earlier statement that suggested otherwise.

The National Guard’s deployment came in response to protests against United States President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportation, which recently targeted hardware stores and other businesses in southern California, prompting outrage.

Protesters flooded the streets starting on Friday to denounce the immigration raids. Trump responded by sending the military to the scene, denouncing what he considered “third-world lawlessness” in the city. Since then, however, the protests have spread beyond Los Angeles, to major cities in other parts of the country.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sherman said authorities “are expecting a ramp-up” in national unrest in the coming days.

“I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re very concerned,” he said.

Sherman explained that 500 of the more than 4,000 National Guard members deployed to Los Angeles have also received training to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the immigration raids.

His remarks came as condemnation continues to grow over Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to California without the permission of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

Since the National Guard arrived on Sunday, Trump has sent nearly 700 Marines to the Los Angeles area as well.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of using the military to escalate tensions in the city, where the protests first broke out on Friday.

“We started off by hearing the administration wanted to go after violent felons, gang members, drug dealers,” Bass said of Trump’s deportation push.

“But when you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armoured caravans through our streets, you are not trying to keep anyone safe. You’re trying to cause fear and panic.

“And when you start deploying federalised troops on the heels of these raids, it is a drastic and chaotic escalation and completely unnecessary.”

Newsom, meanwhile, filed an emergency motion on Tuesday to block Trump from expanding the military presence in Los Angeles beyond federal buildings, with a court hearing set for Thursday.

Bass and Governor Newsom have maintained that local law enforcement were able to handle the situation before Trump intervened and that the military presence prompted more unrest, not less.

Speaking alongside 30 other California mayors and city leaders on Wednesday, Bass questioned if Trump was seeing how far he could push his presidential power.

“This was provoked by the White House. The reason why? We don’t know,” said Bass.

“I posit that maybe we are part of a national experiment to determine how far the federal government can go in reaching in and taking over power from a governor, power from a local jurisdiction.”

So far, Trump has maintained that the soldiers’ deployment was needed to protect federal property and agents — and was therefore within his executive authority.

He has not yet invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807, a federal law that would suspend prohibitions against the military directly taking part in domestic law enforcement. Until that happens, the troops are generally barred from making arrests.

Speaking during a news conference on Wednesday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt repeated Trump’s claims that sending in the National Guard and Marines had prevented Los Angeles from spiralling into chaos.

She charged that Bass and Newsom had “shamefully failed to meet their sworn obligations to their citizens”.

“They’re attempting to use a violent mob as a weapon against their own constituents to prevent the enforcement of immigration law,” she said. “This is deeply un-American and morally reprehensible.”

Questions about ‘migrant invasion’

Amid the unrest, the Trump administration has pledged to continue its aggressive immigration raids, with officials last month setting a quota of 3,000 arrests a day.

Advocates say the pressure has motivated ICE agents to take increasingly drastic measures, targeting anyone in the country without documentation, even those who have not committed criminal offences and those with deep community ties.

Reporting from Los Angeles, Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle said authorities have been conducting blanket raids at Home Depot hardware stores, where undocumented day labourers often gather to find work.

At one location, labourers told Lavelle “that they will continue to come even though they know that these stores are being targeted – even though they know that they will be targets – because quite simply, they’ve got to work”.

“These are people who are communicating by WhatsApp and other methods,” Lavelle added. “If anybody is seen in the area who looks like an ICE agent, straight away, there are reports so that people know that they have to leave.”

So far, 61 Mexican nationals had been detained in Los Angeles during the recent raids, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the influx of migrants into the US constitutes an “invasion”, which in turn necessitates emergency actions.

Speaking on Tuesday from the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, he called the protests in California a “full-blown assault on peace, on public order and our national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country”.

But during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine was asked whether he believed the US was being invaded by a foreign power. His answer appeared to contradict Trump.

“I don’t see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading, but I’ll be mindful of the fact that there have been some border issues,” he said.

While the ruling does not order Khalil’s immediate release, it does undermine the US government’s case against Khalil.

A federal judge in New Jersey has ruled the administration of United States President Donald Trump cannot use an obscure law to detain Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestine advocacy.

The ruling from US District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday cut to the core of the Trump administration’s justification for deporting Khalil, a permanent US resident. But it came short of ordering Khalil’s immediate release from detention.

Instead, Judge Farbiarz gave the administration until 9:30am local (13:30 GMT) on Friday to appeal. After that point, Khalil would be eligible for release on a $1 bail.

Nevertheless, the judge wrote that the administration was violating Khalil’s right to free speech by detaining and trying to deport him under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. That provision allows the secretary of state to remove foreign nationals who bear “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

Judge Farbiarz has previously signalled he believes that provision to be unconstitutional, contradicting the right to free speech.

“The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,” Farbiarz wrote on Wednesday. “This adds up to irreparable harm.”

Khalil was arrested on March 8 after immigration agents showed up at his student apartment building at Columbia University in New York City. After his arrest, the State Department revoked his green card. He has since been held at an immigration detention centre in Louisiana.

The administration has accused Khalil, a student protest leader, of anti-Semitism and supporting Hamas, but officials have offered no evidence to support their claims, either publicly or in court files.

Critics have instead argued that the administration is using such claims to silence all forms of pro-Palestine advocacy.

Like other student protesters targeted for deportation, Khalil is challenging his deportation in immigration court, while simultaneously challenging his arrest and detention in federal proceedings.

The latter is called a habeas corpus petition, and it asserts that the Trump administration has violated his civil liberties by unlawfully keeping him behind bars.

While students in the other high-profile cases — including Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Badar Khan Suri — have all been released from detention as their legal proceedings move forward, a ruling in Khalil’s case has been slower coming.

In April, an immigration judge had ruled that Khalil was deportable based on the State Department’s interpretation of the 1952 law, despite a written letter from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio providing no further evidence for the allegations made against him.

Immigration judges fall under the executive branch of the US government and are generally considered less independent than judges in the judicial branch.

Also that month, immigration authorities denied Khalil’s request for temporary release for his son’s birth.

In the case before the New Jersey federal court, meanwhile, the Trump administration has argued that Khalil was not fully transparent in his green card application, something his lawyers deny. But Judge Farbiarz indicated on Wednesday that it was unusual and “overwhelmingly unlikely” for permanent residents to be detained on such grounds.

Frame it as a call to action or a presidential campaign announcement, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s address to America on Tuesday has tapped into our zeitgeist (German words feel oddly appropriate at the moment) in a way few others have.

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said during a live broadcast with a California flag and the U.S. flag in the background. “The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”

What moment exactly is he referring to?

President Trump has put Marines and National Guardsmen on the streets of Los Angeles, and granted himself the power to put them anywhere. Wednesday, a top military leader said those forces could “detain” protesters, but not outright arrest them, though — despite what you see on right wing media — most protesters have been peaceful.

But every would-be authoritarian ultimately faces a decisive moment, when the fear they have generated must be enforced with action to solidify power.

The danger of that moment for the would-be king is that it is also the time when rebellion is most likely, and most likely to be effective. People wake up. In using force against his own citizens, the leader risks alienating supporters and activating resistance.

What happens next in Los Angeles between the military and protesters — which group is perceived as the aggressors — may likely determine what happens next in our democracy. If the military is the aggressor and protesters remain largely peaceful, Trump risks losing support.

If the protesters are violent, public perception could further empower Trump.

The president’s immigration czar Tom Homan, said on CNN that what happens next, “It all depends on the activities of these protesters — I mean, they make the decisions.”

Welcome to that fraught moment, America.

Who would have thought Newsom would lead on it so effectively?

“Everybody who’s not a Trumpist in this society has been taken by surprise, and is still groggy from the authoritarian offensive of the last five months,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at the embattled Harvard University, and author of “How Democracies Die.”

Levitsky told me that it helps shake off that shock to have national leaders, people who others can look to and rally behind. Especially as fear nudges some into silence.

“You never know who that leader sometimes is going to be, and it may be Newsom,” Levitsky said. “Maybe his political ambitions end up converging with the small d, democratic opposition.”

Maybe. Since his address, and a coinciding and A-game funny online offensive, Newsom’s reach has skyrocketed. Millions of people watched his address, and hundreds of thousands have followed him on TikTok and other social media platforms. Searches about him on Google were up 9,700%, according to CNN. Love his message or find it laughable, it had reach — partly because it was unapologetically clear and also unexpected.

“Trump and his loyalist thrive on division because it allow them to take more power and exert even more control,” Newsom said.

I was on the ground with the protesters this week, and I can say from firsthand experience that there are a small number of agitators and a large number of peaceful protesters. But Trump has done an excellent job of creating crisis and fear by portraying events as out of the control of local and state authorities, and therefore in need of his intervention.

Republicans “need that violence to corroborate their talking points,” Mia Bloom told me. She’s an expert on extremism and a professor at Georgia State University.

Violence “like in the aftermath of George Floyd, when there was the rioting, that actually was helpful for Republicans,” she said.

Levitsky said authoritarians look for crises.

“You need an emergency, both rhetorically and legally, to engage in authoritarian behavior,” he said.

So Trump has laid a trap with his immigration sweeps in a city of immigrants to create opportunity, and Newsom has called it out.

And it calling it out — pointing out the danger of protesters turning violent and yet still calling for peaceful protest — Newsom has put Trump in a precarious position that the president may not have been expecting.

“Repressing protest is a very risky venture,” said Levitsky. “It often, not always, but often, does trigger push back.”

Levitsky points out that already, there is some evidence that Trump may have overreached, and is losing support.

A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 76% of Americans oppose the military birthday parade Trump plans on throwing for himself in Washington, D.C. this weekend. That includes disapproval from more than half of Trump supporters.

A separate poll by Quinnipiac University found that 54% of those polled disapprove of how he’s handling immigration issues, and 56% disapprove of his deportations.

Bloom warns that there’s a danger in raising too many alarms about authoritarianism right now, because we still have some functioning guardrails. She said that stoking too much fear could backfire, for Newsom and for democracy.

“We’re at a moment in which the country is very polarized and that these things are being told through two very different types of narratives, and the moment we give the other side, which was a very apocalyptic, nihilistic narrative, we give them fodder, we justify the worst policies” she said.

She pointed to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when some protesters placed flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns, and act of peaceful protest she said changed public perception. That, she said, is what’s needed now.

Newsom was clear in his call for peaceful protest. But also clear that it was a call to action in a historic inflection point. We can’t know in the moment who or what history will remember, said Levitsky.

“It’s really important that the most privileged among us stand up and fight,” he said. “If they don’t, citizens are going to look around and say, ‘Well, why should I?”

Having leaders willing to be the target, when so many feel the danger of speaking out, has value, he said.

Because fear may spread like a virus, but courage is contagious, too.

The Trump administration argued in federal court Wednesday that any judicial intervention to curtail its deployment of military troops to Los Angeles would endanger federal immigration agents and undermine the president’s authority to keep American cities safe.

Attorneys for President Trump called California’s request Tuesday for a temporary restraining order barring those deployments a “crass political stunt endangering American lives” amid violent protests over immigration raids in the city.

If granted, they wrote, a restraining order would prevent Trump “from exercising his lawful statutory and constitutional power” as commander in chief to ensure federal facilities and personnel are protected and that the nation’s immigration laws are adequately enforced.

“There is no rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law.”

Hindering the administration’s deployment of troops, the attorneys argued, “would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous.”

The administration was responding to California’s request Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issue a restraining order blocking Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployments of thousands of state National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to L.A.

The troops were deployed without the request or approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom or city leaders, who have called their presence unnecessary, politically motivated and a move to increase tensions on the streets, rather than reduce them.

Trump and other administration officials have defended the deployments as necessary, and in their filing Wednesday, the president’s attorneys argued that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents had been targeted in violent attacks and that federal facilities had been damaged and defaced.

They also said that local police had acknowledged things had spun out of control and that their response had been inadequate to restore order.

Trump’s attorneys included with their opposition a written declaration from Ernesto Santacruz Jr., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations unit in Los Angeles. He described how federal agents faced violence from protesters during a raid in the Garment District, near a Home Depot store in Paramount, and at a secure ICE processing facility downtown.

Santacruz said federal immigration officials were also having their personal information spread by protesters online, and that efforts by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol to restore order and address the threats on the street were inadequate.

“Even with the LAPD, LASD, and CHP all engaged in the ensuing law enforcement activities, I believe the safety of local federal facilities and safety of those conducting immigration enforcement operations in this area of responsibility requires additional manpower and resources,” Santacruz wrote.

The administration’s arguments, if adopted by the court, could have implications elsewhere. Similar demonstrations against immigration raids have erupted in San Francisco and Santa Ana and across the country, including in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York and Seattle. More protests were scheduled to coincide with a large military parade in Washington on Saturday.

Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta first filed a lawsuit over the L.A. deployments Monday, arguing they are unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — violating state sovereignty and clear federal law limiting the use of military forces for domestic policing, including the Posse Comitatus Act.

They said Tuesday that a restraining order was necessary on an emergency basis to prevent “imminent, irreparable harm” to the state, arguing that the Trump administration intended for the military troops to “accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles.”

Bonta said Trump was using military personnel as “a political pawn” to “create a confrontational situation.” Newsom said the federal government was turning the military against American citizens in a way that “threatens the very core of our democracy.” Trump, he said, was “behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

Constitutional scholars and members of Congress also have raised concerns about the executive branch deploying military assets to quell street protests, suggesting such tactics are most commonly used by authoritarian strongmen and dictators.

A coalition of 18 other state attorneys general issued a statement Wednesday backing Bonta and California’s lawsuit, saying Trump’s decision to deploy troops without the consent of California’s leaders was “unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic.”

“The federal administration should be working with local leaders to keep everyone safe, not mobilizing the military against the American people,” said the statement, which was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont.

In their response to California’s restraining order request Wednesday, the president’s attorneys said the military forces in L.A. would not be directly engaged in policing, and that state officials had offered zero evidence to suggest otherwise.

“Neither the National Guard nor the Marines are engaged in law enforcement. Rather, they are protecting law enforcement, consistent with longstanding practice and the inherent protective power to provide for the safety of federal property and personnel,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

A hearing on the state’s request for a restraining order is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The outcome could potentially affect how federal resources are deployed at future demonstrations in L.A. and beyond, including in coming days.

The administration has said immigration raids will continue in L.A. and nationwide. Trump has warned that any protesters who show up at the military parade in Washington will be “met with heavy force.”

The parade is for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, according to the administration, but critics have derided it as an authoritarian show of strongman power by Trump — whose birthday is also Saturday.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is looking to cancel $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress. That’s just a sliver of the $1.7 trillion that lawmakers OK’d for the budget year ending Sept. 30.

The package of 21 budget rescissions will have to be approved by both chambers of Congress for the cuts to take place, beginning with a House vote expected Thursday. Otherwise, the spending remains in place.

The White House is betting that cutting federal investments in public media and some foreign aid programs will prove politically popular. Republicans say if this first effort is successful, they hope more rescission packages will follow as they look to continue work by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency once run by billionaire Elon Musk.

Democrats describe the cuts as inhumane and say they would rip life-saving support from hungry and sick people across the globe. Republicans are describing the cuts as “modest” and say the U.S. will continue to play a critical role in helping the world’s most vulnerable people.

Here’s a look at some of the spending the White House is trying to claw back:

The Republican president has asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. Congress has traditionally provided public media with advanced funds to reduce political pressures.

The corporation distributes the money mostly to public television and radio stations around the country, with some assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System to support national programming.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

Much of the conservatives’ ire is focused on NPR and PBS. “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during a hearing in March.

But about two-thirds of the money goes to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.

“They want to punish the national guys, that’s fine,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, a Republican who said he was undecided going into this week’s vote. “But I’m trying to get a handle on what it means for my stations in Nevada, because the ability to fundraise at the national level ain’t the same as the ability to fundraise in Reno.”

The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the GOP bill passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage and highlight hometown heroes.

Meanwhile, local radio stations say their share of the allocation provides funding for 386 stations employing nearly 10,000 people. Dozens of stations rely on the public grants for more than half of their budget. Many others for nearly half.

Some Republicans say they worry about what the cuts would mean for local public stations but tough decisions are necessary.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said South Dakota Public Broadcasting does a “really good job of covering the state Legislature” and other public affairs.

“So these rescissions are not going to be comfortable for South Dakota to deal with,” Johnson said. “That being said, we’re $37 trillion in debt.”

Funding to combat diseases

Trump’s administration is looking to claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs.

That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.

The administration says the $500 million rescission for infectious diseases would not reduce treatment but would “eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and equity programs.” It makes a similar assurance on the HIV funding, saying it would eliminate “only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”

Scores of humanitarian aid groups have asked lawmakers to oppose the proposed cuts. Catholic Relief Services called on donors to contact their members of Congress to urge them to vote against the bill. Without the U.S. assistance, “countless lives are at risk, and the needs will continue to rise,” said the plea to supporters.

The importance of the United States’ contribution to the global HIV response cannot be overstated, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. It says the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has saved more than 26 million lives and averted almost 5 million new HIV infections since it was launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush, a Republican.

“Instead of facing a death sentence, people supported by PEPFAR are raising families, building their communities, and helping their communities grow and develop,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

Refugee assistance

The Trump administration is looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country. The program also helps vetted refugees who come to the U.S. get started in their new country.

The White House says “these funds support activities that could be more fairly shared with non-U.S. Government donors, providing savings to the U.S. taxpayer.”

Refugees International urged Congress to reject what it described as a reckless proposal.

About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.

The administration wants to claw back $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion approved for the Development Assistance program at the U.S. Agency for International Development and about $1.7 billion, or nearly half of the funds, dedicated to the State Department’s Economic Support Fund.

The administration says in its request to Congress that the Development Assistance account is supposed to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient democratic societies, but in practice many of the programs “conflict with American values” and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of responsibilities to their citizens while providing “no clear benefit to Americans.”

U.S. leaders have often argued over the years that helping to eradicate conditions that lead to political upheaval abroad is not just the right thing to do but also the smart thing.

“By helping stem pandemics and war and helping countries become healthy, free-market democracies, we are actually helping our own country,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Republicans are rejecting the dire warnings. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said “ waste, fraud and abuse is what this is all about.”

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

June 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs given the green light to stay in place through July by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The court on Tuesday granted a request by the Trump administration to put a pause on the ruling of a lower court that blocked the tariffs pending appeal, which leaves the tariffs in effect until at least July 31 when the appellate judges will hear oral arguments in the case.

“Having considered the traditional stay factors,” wrote the judges who participated in the ruling, “the court concludes a stay is warranted under the circumstances.”

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled last month that several of the tariffs put into action are illegal, after a coalition of 12 states with Democratic leaders sued the Trump administration over the duties.

The Federal Circuit Court judges did not give any reasons behind their decision to keep the tariffs active, nor did they sign the ruling.

LITTLE TOKYO — On a Tuesday morning on downtown Los Angeles’ 1st Street, the immigrants are out in force.

I mean, they are everywhere: Sweeping, scrubbing graffiti off walls, opening their shops, grabbing lattes on the way to work.

Send in the Marines!

Here in the heart of Little Tokyo, where immigration protesters swept through Monday night, it’s the white faces that stand out — the way it has been for decades all over downtown. With its gritty streets and sometimes gritty history, these urban blocks with their cheaper rents and welcoming enclaves have long been where people migrate when they cross borders into the United States.

Which — though I certainly don’t want to speculate on the inner workings of Stephen Miller’s brain — probably means blocks like this one were on President Trump immigration czar’s mind when he posted this on social media: “[H]uge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations. A ruptured, balkanized society of strangers.”

“Eddie” lives in Little Tokyo and helped clean up after immigration protests in Little Tokyo on Tuesday. He holds Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status and said he is afraid to go to the protests for fear he could be deported for doing so. Cleaning up, he said, is his way of participating.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

That, “Eddie” told me, is bunk. Eddie is a “Dreamer,” with semi-legal status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, who emigrated from Mexico as a kid and didn’t want to share his last name because he fears the current immigration sweeps. For the past two years, he’s lived in an upstairs apartment that overlooks this block of hotels, boutiques and restaurants. I met him on the sidewalk in front of his place, his palms stained black with soot from picking up burned lights and banners from the night before.

Eddie, who dreams about someday running for public office, said people such as himself are in “a very vulnerable” situation right now, so though he’s always been involved in civic issues, he doesn’t feel safe going to protests that have turned downtown Los Angeles into a national spectacle, and have offered President Trump an excuse to flout law and history by calling in the military.

Instead, Eddie is cleaning up — because he doesn’t want people to drive by and think this neighborhood is a mess.

“It’s not representative, you know,” he says of the charred heap in front of him. “So I’m out here.”

Eddie said he loves it here, because “it’s one of the few communities where, like, it’s close knit. I see people that I’m for sure were here in 1945 and I love them, and I know that they know of my existence, and I’m thankful for theirs.”

Before we can talk much more, we’re interrupted by Alex Gerwer, a Long Beach resident who has come out for the day to help scrub away the graffiti that some rogue protesters left behind.

Folks, not going to lie, “F— ICE” is everywhere. I mean, everywhere — there’s got to be a spray paint shortage at this point.”

Gerwer, the son of two concentration camp survivors, is here with the political group 5051, which has been staging anti-Trump rallies across the country. Gerwer said he and his group decided they wanted to do something more proactive than just protest, so here they are.

“We want to clean that off and show Trump, the National Guard, you know the folks from the Marines, that this is clearly political theater,” Gerwer said. “And I feel sorry for all these law enforcement people, because many of them, they’re in a position where they’re being put between the Constitution and a tyrannical president.”

Misael Santos, a manager at a ramen restaurant in Little Tokyo, said that most of the restaurants in the neighborhood hire immigrant workers because “they know immigrants work hard.”

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

Down the block, I met Misael Santos in front of the ramen restaurant where he works as a manager. He was asking the folks at the Japanese American National Museum on the corner whether they had any surveillance footage, because lights and a tent had been stolen off the restaurant’s patio the night before. They didn’t.

Santos, a Mexican immigrant, told me he didn’t like the stealing and vandalism.

“I understand the protests, but that is no excuse to destroy public property,” he said.

Earlier, Mayor Karen Bass had tweeted, “Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,” and Santos agreed with that.

“Immigrants work hard,” he told me. Which is why, he said, many of the Asian-owned business around here hire Latinos.

He said that this neighborhood, with its mix of ethnicities, is “comfortable and safe,” but lately, his employees are also fearful. They don’t want to come to work because they fear raids, but “we have to work,” he said with a resigned shrug.

But let me get back to Stephen Miller, since he’s driving a lot of this chaos. Replying to Bass’ tweet about vandals, Miller said on social media, “By ‘immigrant communities,’ Mayor Bass actually means ‘illegal alien communities.’ She is demonstrating again her sole objective here is to shield illegals from deportation, at any cost.”

William T Fujioka, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American National Museum, worked with volunteers to remove graffiti after some protesters defaced the building in Little Tokyo.

(Anita Chabria/Los Angeles Times)

That kind of rhetoric hearkens to the dark days of this neighborhood, William T Fujioka, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American National Museum, told me, when I finally made it down to his patch of this neighborhood.

Fujioka and I talked in the plaza where buses pulled up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to transport Japanese Americans to prison camps. His own grandfather, he said, was imprisoned in such a camp.

Protesters had defaced the museum, a nearby Buddhist temple and a public art sculpture called the OOMA cube, meant to symbolize human oneness. Fujioka called the vandalism “heartbreaking,” but also said it was not representative of most protesters.

“We’re strong supporters of peaceful protests and also immigration rights because of what happened to our community,” he told me. “Our community is a community of immigrants.”

Fujioka told me how one of his grandfathers immigrated legally in 1905, but the other wasn’t so lucky. They wouldn’t let him land in L.A., he said, so he “was dropped off in Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande. He walked from Mexico with 300 other men up to Texas, across the Rio Grande and New Mexico, Arizona and California.”

Fujioka grew up not far from this plaza in Boyle Heights, were so many people with journeys similar to that of his grandfather wind up, then and now. Boyle Heights, he said, “is the ultimate melting pot. In Boyle Heights before the war, you had Japanese, Latinos, African Americans, you had Jews, you had Italians, and you had Russians who fled communist Russia. And we all grew up together, and we didn’t care who anyone was. All we cared about is, if you’re from the neighborhood.”

Just behind Fujioka, I saw that Gerwer had found his group and was busy scrubbing the museum’s windows. One of those with him, S.A. Griffin, had been at the protests downtown this week. He said they were mostly peaceful, except for the “idiots” who covered their faces and incited violence as the sun went down.

“It’s the vampires that come out at night,” Griffin said. And that’s really the all of it. There will always be agitators, especially at night.

But daylight brings clarity.

Indigo Rosen-Lopez, left, Maruko Bridgewater and Colin McQuade walk through Little Tokyo on Tuesday, the morning after immigration protests. Rosen-Lopez and McQuade are half brothers and Bridgewater is their grandmother’s best friend.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

Across the street, I met 88-year-old Maruko Bridgewater, walking with half brothers Colin McQuade and Indigo Rosen-Lopez. The men consider Bridgewater their grandmother, though she’s really their maternal grandmother’s best friend.

They were walking Bridgewater back to her nearby apartment and said they were worried about her during the protests and even in the aftermath — she had just stepped over broken glass from a nearby shop.

“It’s really scary to see her walk around by herself,” McQuade told me.

These “grandkids” may worry, but let me tell you, may the Lord above make me half as sharp and stylish as Bridgewater at that age. She came to the United States through New York in 1976. I asked her whether she liked Trump’s crackdown on immigrants and she told me, “Not really, but not Biden either.”

But this trio, walking on a clear June morning when the gloom has burned away, are everything that is good and right with immigrant communities. Between the three, they represent Hungarian, Bulgarian, Native American, Irish, Scottish and Japanese.

McQuade told me that his grandparents met during World War II.

“Literally, like, in the middle of the biggest war between America and Japan, my grandparents found each other, and they fell in love, and they … created a life for us from literally nothing,” he said.

That is downtown Los Angeles, where immigrants come to build a life. If that looks like the third world nightmare to some, it’s because they are blind to what they are seeing.

A nighttime curfew was in force in Los Angeles as local officials sought to get a handle on protests that United States President Donald Trump claimed were an invasion by a “foreign enemy”.

“I have declared a local emergency and issued a curfew for central Los Angeles to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting,” Mayor Karen Bass told reporters on Tuesday.

One square mile (2.5 square kilometres) of the city’s more than 500-square-mile area will be out of bounds until 6am (13:00 GMT) for everyone apart from residents, journalists and emergency services, she added.

Small-scale and largely peaceful protests began on Friday in Los Angeles as anger swelled over intensified arrests by immigration authorities.

At their largest, a few thousand people have taken to the streets, but smaller groups have used the cover of darkness to set fires, daub graffiti and smash windows.

Overnight on Monday, 23 businesses were looted, police said, adding that more than 500 people had been arrested in recent days.

Protests have also sprung up in other cities around the United States, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco.

Trump has ordered 4,000 National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles, along with 700 active-duty Marines, in what he has claimed is a necessary escalation to take back control, despite the insistence of local law enforcement that they could handle matters.

The Pentagon said the deployment would cost US taxpayers $134m.

“What you are witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order, and national sovereignty,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg, a military base in North Carolina.

“This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom said Trump’s shock militarisation of the city was the behaviour of “a tyrant, not a president”.

In a livestreamed address, Newsom called Trump a “president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American tradition”.

“California may be first, but it clearly will not end here.”

In a filing to the US District Court in Northern California, Newsom asked for an injunction preventing the use of troops for policing.

Trump’s use of the military is an “incredibly rare” move for a US president, said Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel.

US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force – absent the declaration of an insurrection, which Trump again mused about on Tuesday.

Trump “is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilising Marines,” said law professor Frank Bowman of the University of Missouri.

Acting Enforcement Director Cara Petersen has served with the United States agency since it was founded.

The top remaining enforcement official at the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has tendered her resignation, saying the White House’s overhaul of the agency has made her position untenable.

Acting Enforcement Director Cara Petersen, who has served at the agency since its creation nearly 15 years ago, said that current leadership under US President Donald Trump “has no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way”, according to an email first obtained by the Reuters news agency.

“I have served under every director and acting director in the bureau’s history and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack,” Petersen wrote in an email.

“It has been devastating to see the bureau’s enforcement function being dismantled through thoughtless reductions in staff, inexplicable dismissals of cases, and terminations of negotiated settlements that let wrongdoers off the hook.”

Petersen’s departure comes four months after the agency’s enforcement and supervision chiefs also resigned amid efforts by President Donald Trump to dismantle the CFPB.

An agency spokesperson and Petersen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In addition to seeking to cut the CFPB’s workforce by about 90 percent, acting Director Russell Vought and chief legal officer Mark Paoletta have said they will slash agency enforcement and supervision and have dropped major CFPB enforcement cases en masse, including against Capital One and Walmart. The agency has even revised some cases already settled under the prior administration.

The dramatic changes come as Republicans have complained for years that the CFPB, created in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, is too powerful and lacks oversight. Democrats and agency backers contend it plays a critical role in policing financial markets on behalf of consumers.

“While I wish you all the best, I worry for American consumers,” said Petersen in her email. A federal appeals court in Washington has yet to decide on the Trump administration’s effort to undo a court injunction blocking the agency from firing most agency staff.

Veteran correspondent for the US broadcaster, Terry Moran, had called Trump aide Stephen Miller a ‘world-class hater’.

Veteran journalist Terry Moran will not be returning to ABC News after he was suspended by the broadcaster for a social media post that called United States President Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller “world-class haters”.

In a statement, the US network said on Tuesday that Moran’s quickly-deleted post on X was “a clear violation of ABC News policies”, the Associated Press news agency reports.

It added that Moran’s contract was ending, and “based on his recent post… we have made the decision not to renew”.

The post on Sunday night was primarily directed at Miller, whom Moran described as “the brains behind Trumpism”.

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran had said on X.

Moran, who had recently interviewed Trump in his role as Senior National Correspondent for ABC News, also described the US President as a “world-class hater”, but said that in Trump’s case, it was only a “means to an end” of “his own glorification”.

In Miller’s case, however, Moran said, “his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate”.

The Trump administration quickly condemned Moran’s post, with Vice President JD Vance describing it as an “absolutely vile smear of Stephen Miller”.

Moran, 65, had worked at ABC News since 1997. He was a longtime co-anchor of “Nightline”, and covered the Supreme Court and national politics.

During an interview with Trump that was broadcast a month ago, the president told Moran, “You’re not being very nice” in the midst of a contentious exchange about deportations.

Trump aide Steven Cheung responded to Moran’s exit on Tuesday with a post on X, simply saying: “Talk s***, get hit.”

Miller, meanwhile, has been focused on the Trump administration’s decision to send 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion to Los Angeles, amid anti-immigration enforcement protests in California’s capital city.

In one post on X on Tuesday, Miller said that California has become a “criminal sanctuary for millions of illegal alien invaders” and that “huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations.”

The AP news agency reported that Moran’s contract with ABC had been due to expire on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Moran’s post also comes at what was already a sensitive time for ABC News. The network agreed to pay $15m towards Trump’s presidential library in December to settle a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate claim that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E Jean Carroll.

Moran leaves ABC as major television networks in the US struggle to retain audiences amid the soaring popularity of some podcasters and subscription-based newsletters.

The shift has also been embraced by some journalists, such as Mehdi Hasan, who started his own media network in early 2024, after quitting MSNBC when it cancelled his show in late 2023.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday night accused President Trump of intentionally fanning the flames of the Los Angeles protests and “pulling a military dragnet across” the city endangering peaceful protesters and targeting hardworking immigrant families.

The Democratic governor’s comments were a forceful rebuke to the president’s claims that deploying the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city was necessary to control the civil unrest.

“Donald Trump’s government isn’t protecting our communities — they’re traumatizing our communities,” Newsom said. “And that seems to be the entire point.”

The governor posted his video address to California on social media hours after Trump said at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina that he sent in troops to protect immigration agents from “the attacks of a vicious and violent mob.”

The picture Trump painted of the federal government’s role in the protests against immigration raids marks a sharp contrast to Newsom’s assertion that state and local law enforcement were successfully keeping the peace before federal authorities deployed “tear gas, “flash-bang grenades” and “rubber bullets” on Angelenos exercising their constitutional right to free speech and assembly.

Then Trump “illegally” called up the California National Guard, Newsom said.

“This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers, and even our National Guard at risk,” Newsom said. “That’s when the downward spiral began. He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder. And the president, he did it on purpose.”

The governor, who has become a target for Republicans and a central figure in the political and legal battle over the protests, has said for days that an “unhinged” Trump deployed federal troops to intentionally incite violence and chaos, seeking to divert attention away from his actions in Washington and assert his “dictatorial tendencies.”

Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a request for a restraining order earlier Tuesday asking a federal judge to call off the “Department of Defense’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles and the takeover of a California National Guard unit.” The request came the day after California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging that the deployment of the guard without the governor’s consent violated the U.S. Constitution.

After returning to Washington, Trump commented on the “good relationship” he’s always had with Newsom, before blaming the governor for the unrest.

“This should never have been allowed to start, and if we didn’t get involved, Los Angeles would be burning down right now,” Trump said, and then made a reference to the deadly wildfires in the Los Angeles area in January. “Just as the houses burned down.”

He said the military is in the city to de-escalate the situation and control what he described as paid “insurrectionists,” “agitators” and “troublemakers.”

“We have a lot of people all over the world watching Los Angeles,” Trump said. “We’ve got the Olympics, so we have this guy allowing this to happen.”

On Monday, Trump said his top border policy advisor Tom Homan should follow through on threats to arrest the governor. Newsom immediately jumped on the comment, comparing the federal administration to an “authoritarian regime.”

“I never thought I’d hear those words. Honestly, Democrat, Republican. Never thought I’d hear those in my lifetime — to threaten a political opponent who happens to be sitting governor,” Newsom said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declined to answer a question about whether Newsom should be arrested on Tuesday and instead said the governor should be “tarred and feathered.”

Newsom took a shot at Johnson during his address, saying the speaker has “completely abdicated” his responsibility for Congress to serve as a check on the White House. He warned that “other states are next.”

“At this moment, we all need to stand up and be held to account, a higher level of accountability,” Newsom said, imploring protesters to exercise free-speech rights peacefully. “I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress and fear. But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and anxiety.

“What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.”

Times staff writer Laura Nelson and Washington bureau chief Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

June 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Army bases, which honored Confederate leaders before 2023, will have their original names reinstated. Trump said, “it’s no time to change.”

Trump made the announcement during a speech at Fort Bragg to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday, which will also be celebrated this weekend in Washington, D.C., with a military parade.

“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,” Trump said.

“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change. And I’m superstitious. I like to keep it going,” he added.

Fort Bragg’s name was recently restored from Fort Liberty after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an order earlier this year. Instead of honoring Confederate general Braxton Bragg, the base now honors World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient Roland Bragg.

“Fort Bragg, it shall always remain. That’s never going to be happening again,” Trump said Tuesday.

The Pentagon also restored Fort Moore’s original name to Fort Benning, with the retired name honoring a different man and not Confederate general, Lt. Gen. Henry Benning. The Georgia base now honors Corporal Fred Benning, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism during World War I.

While most of the bases will be renamed in honor of someone with the same surname, Trump implied that Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee would not.

“We won two world wars in those forts,” Trump told supporters last July during a campaign rally, as he criticized the Biden administration for dropping the bases’ original names.

Former President Biden ordered the bases be renamed in 2021 following Black Lives Matter protests the previous year. Biden signed a bill that created a naming commission to change the names of forts that honored Confederates, while giving the commission three years to complete the job.

During Tuesday’s speech, Trump also discussed the protests in Los Angeles and his deployment of National Guardsmen and Marines, saying “this anarchy will not stand.”

“Generations of Army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home, like is happening in California,” Trump said.

“As commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It’s never going to happen. What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country,” the president continued.

“This week, we remember that we only have a country because we first had an Army — and after 250 years, we still proudly declare that we are free because you are strong.”

The Army will continue the celebration of its 250th anniversary with a military parade on Saturday in Washington, D.C. Saturday is also Flag Day and Trump’s 79th birthday.