Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Editorial Note: The DHS Daily Briefing is a collection of news articles related to Department’s mission. The inclusion of particular stories is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse the political viewpoints or affiliations included in news coverage.

FOX News [10/14/2025 6:35 PM, Sophia Compton and Alexandra Koch, 40621K] Video: HERE reports federal law enforcement officials suspect Mexican criminal organizations are funding a scheme to pay thousands of dollars in cash bounties for the killings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, with payouts allegedly increasing based on an employee’s rank and actions. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday announced the alleged bounty system offers $2,000 for gathering intelligence or doxxing agents — including photos and family details — $5,000 to $10,000 for kidnapping or non-lethal assaults on standard immigration officers, and up to $50,000 for the assassination of high-ranking officials. "Under President [Donald] Trump and [DHS Secretary Kristi Noem], EVERY criminal, terrorist, and illegal alien will face American justice," DHS wrote in an X post. The announcement came after the Washington Examiner first reported the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) uncovered gangs in Chicago were offered up to $50,000 to assassinate high-ranking ICE officials. Gang members in Chicago’s Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods have positioned armed "spotters" on rooftops to monitor law enforcement activity, according to the outlet’s report. "Communication is conducted via radio," DEA officials alleged. On Oct. 6, federal agents in Chicago arrested a suspected Latin Kings leader accused of offering payments to capture or kill a senior immigration officer involved in Operation Midway Blitz, a sweeping crackdown on those who sought refuge under the city’s sanctuary policies. "Depraved individuals like Juan Espinoza Martinez — who do not value human life and threaten law enforcement — do NOT belong in this country," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement. "We will not allow criminal gangs to put hits on U.S. government officials and our law enforcement officers. Thanks to ICE and our federal law enforcement partners, this thug is off our streets and behind bars.” NewsMax [10/14/2025 2:06 PM, Staff, 4109K] reports that, citing "credible information," DHS said the cartels are specifically targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection personnel in Chicago and other U.S. cities. "These criminal networks have issued explicit instructions to U.S.-based sympathetics, including street gangs in Chicago, to monitor, harass, and assassinate federal agents," the DHS said in the release. The department said the coordination includes spotter networks, structured bounties, and local logistical support from extremist groups. DHS intelligence reports indicate that gang members, including individuals tied to the Latin Kings, have positioned "spotters" on rooftops in Chicago’s Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. These spotters, equipped with firearms and radios, are allegedly tracking the movements of ICE and CBP agents in real time. The department said this live surveillance has led to ambushes and disruptions during federal enforcement actions, including during Operation Midway Blitz, an ongoing DHS initiative. The statement describes a structured bounty system used by cartels to incentivize attacks on U.S. personnel: $2,000 for gathering or publishing private information about agents, including photos and family details. $5,000 to $10,000 for kidnapping or nonlethal assaults on ICE or CBP officers. Up to $50,000 for the assassination of high-ranking officials. The Washington Times [10/14/2025 9:48 PM, Stephen Dinan, 852K] reports “These criminal networks are not just resisting the rule of law; they are waging an organized campaign of terror against the brave men and women who protect our borders and communities,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Her department suggested the cartels and “domestic extremist groups” are operating “in coordination.” The department asked the public to counter the spotters by reporting them to an ICE tip line. Trump officials have long worried about cartels trying to target ICE officers. That’s one reason officers wear masks as they enter communities to arrest deportation targets. Anti-ICE activists have protested, accusing the agency of operating as a “secret police.” The agitators have responded with online tools to try to expose ICE officers’ identities and activities. Homeland Security earlier this month convinced Apple to take down one of those apps, saying it put officers in danger. The man who shot and killed two migrants in an attack on the ICE processing facility in Dallas last month had used an ICE tracking app. Homeland Security last week revealed a bounty placed specifically on Gregory Bovino, a senior CBP official who oversaw the immigration enforcement surge in Los Angeles this summer and is now in Chicago for that city’s surge. The department identified Juan Espinoza-Martines, a migrant member of the Latin Kings street gang, as one person sharing the bounty on Chief Bovino, which included a $10,000 reward to “take him down.”

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FOX News [10/14/2025 4:25 PM, Staff, 40019K] reports Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin says Mexican cartels and U.S. gangs are offering up to $50,000 for attacks on federal officers in a coordinated campaign targeting ICE and CBP agents on ‘America Reports.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [10/14/2025 10:05 PM, Staff, 2416K] reports the U.S. military on Tuesday morning carried out its fifth strike on an alleged drug-running vessel in the Caribbean Sea and killed all six crew members. President Donald Trump said the strike was carried out in international waters near Venezuela on Tuesday morning using a kinetic strike against the vessel upon an order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narco-terrorist networks and was transiting along a known [designated terrorist organization] route," Trump said Tuesday afternoon in a Truth Social post. The president did not say where the suspected drug vessel originated. Six male "narco-terrorists" were killed in the strike, and no U.S. military personnel were harmed during the action, Trump said. The president posted a 33-second video showing a vessel in the crosshairs of an aerial vehicle. It showed a boat engulfed in a ball of flames upon contact by the munition used to destroy it. The attack raises to 27 the number of people killed in the strikes on the alleged drug boats. Trump in September notified several congressional committees of the armed conflict between the United States and drug cartels, which the president has designated as terrorist organizations. The strikes began on Sept. 2 and have taken no prisoners while using lethal force in a manner that no other presidential administration has OK’d until now. The Trump administration says such attacks are legal because they target "unlawful combatants" who are "trying to bring deadly poison to our shores," said Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, in September. The administration has not provided any legal analysis to support its position, though, according to New York Times. Critics argue the U.S. military cannot target non-combatants who are not engaged in direct hostilities against the United States or its people. They say the U.S. Coast Guard should intercept and detain suspected drug smugglers, instead. Tuesday’s strike against the vessel likely will raise tensions between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the United States, according to CNN. Trump has accused Maduro of profiting from the smuggling to and distribution of illicit drugs in the United States, and his administration is offering a $50 million bounty leading to his arrest. Maduro has threatened to mobilize the Venezuelan military and declared a state of emergency in case of a direct attack by U.S. forces. The Hill [10/14/2025 5:03 PM, Filip Timotija, 12595K] reports “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike.” No U.S. troops were harmed in the operation, the president said. This is the fifth strike the U.S. military has conducted against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea in recent months. The previous four strikes killed 21 people in total, according to administration officials. The campaign against alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea comes as Trump has hammered Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being a drug lord and calling him an illegitimate leader. The administration has called off diplomatic outreach with Venezuela in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the president informed Congress that the U.S. is in an armed conflict with drug cartels characterized as terrorist groups by the administration. Reuters [10/14/2025 1:53 PM, Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, 36480K] reports that the Pentagon recently disclosed to Congress that Trump has determined the United States is engaged in "a non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels. Some former military lawyers say the legal explanations given by the Trump administration for killing suspected drug traffickers at sea instead of apprehending them fail to satisfy requirements under the law of war. A large U.S. military buildup is taking place in the southern Caribbean. In addition to F-35 aircraft in Puerto Rico, there are eight U.S. warships in the region, carrying thousands of sailors and marines, and one nuclear-powered submarine.

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New York Times [10/14/2025 2:05 PM, Frances Robles, 153395K] reports when the United States military launched an airstrike on a speedboat as it approached the southern shore of the Dominican Republic last month, killing three people on board, Dominican authorities said more than 375 packages of cocaine went flying into the Caribbean Sea. Dozens of them had red packaging with a brand name clearly labeled in black and white capital letters, MEN, according to photos distributed by the Dominican anti-narcotics agency. The 1,000 kilos of cocaine recovered from the wreckage were added to the nearly 19,000 kilos of drugs the Dominican Republic’s anti-narcotics agency had already captured since January, in what had been a record-setting year of narcotics seizures at sea before U.S. warships moved into the region. The Trump administration, claiming to battle drug-trafficking cartels it labels terrorists, has been destroying speedboats in the Caribbean, shining a fresh light on a decades-old industry responsible for bringing tons of cocaine into the United States each year. Long known as a popular corridor for moving people, drugs and guns, the Caribbean is no longer the dominant route it was in the 1980s, when television shows like “Miami Vice” captured the way Colombian drug cartels shipped and flew illicit products to South Florida. But as enforcement strategies have changed throughout the years, the region has periodically re-emerged as a popular channel for moving illicit goods, increasingly to Europe, where the demand for cocaine, and the price, is higher. Despite the Trump administration’s portrayal of the Caribbean and Venezuela as a rampant conduit for drugs killing Americans, the vast majority of maritime drug trafficking bound for the United States actually occurs on the Pacific, U.S. and United Nations data show. Still, experts say, the Caribbean continues to be an important hub for the trafficking of Colombian cocaine, with some of it passing through Venezuela, though it plays no role in the movement of fentanyl, which had been President Trump’s chief concern before the strikes on the boats began.

NewsMax [10/14/2025 12:46 PM, Sandy Fitzgerald, 4109K] reports that drug traffickers are adapting their strategies after a series of U.S. military strikes against them. Now they’re turning to old pathways and shift routes, including targeting the more lucrative European markets, where cocaine and other narcotics can sell for far higher prices. "More covert means are being used to trans-ship drugs," according to Patrae Rowe, head of the Firearms and Narcotics Investigation Division of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, reported The New York Times on Tuesday. This includes "smaller loads, hidden in food shipments or other goods," Rowe added. President Donald Trump’s renewed maritime crackdown on the cartels his administration calls "narco-terrorists" means changing tactics in the Caribbean Sea for the smugglers. The Caribbean once dominated global drug trafficking, as immortalized in the "Miami Vice" era of the 1980s, when Colombian cartels shipped cocaine directly into South Florida. After the 1990s, enforcement pressure shifted routes to Mexico and Central America. Typically, traffickers move Colombian cocaine to islands in the Caribbean such as Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. The drugs are then repackaged and staged for shipment abroad, with some cargo traveling through several islands before being loaded onto container ships or "go-fast" boats bound for their final destination. Since September, U.S. forces have destroyed at least four such boats, killing 21 people in a series of strikes across Caribbean waters. The White House calls the operations a success, but legal scholars say attacking suspected traffickers without clear evidence violates international law.

New York Times [10/14/2025 2:59 PM, Carol Rosenberg, 135475K] reports that federal agents have moved about 20 migrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday, repopulating the holding site for detainees designated for deportation for the first time in nearly two weeks. The identities or nationalities of the detainees were not immediately known. All were believed to be men. Trackers spotted the flight after it left a Homeland Security Department hub in Alexandria, La., on Monday afternoon. But the first confirmation came on Tuesday, after the federal holiday, from a defense official who was not authorized to be identified by name. The operation raised to about 710 the number of migrants who had been temporarily held at the base since the Trump administration’s deportation operations began in early February. On Oct. 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents transferred 18 detainees held at the base back to U.S. holding facilities, leaving the site empty. The arrivals on Monday were the first since then. A spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department did not respond to questions of why the base was cleared of migrants, or why more were sent there. The site had generally served as a way station for deportees bound for Latin America, primarily Venezuela and El Salvador. More recently, the department used it to house several dozen men from countries farther from the United States, including Egypt, Iran, India, Romania and Vietnam. Civil liberties lawyers are seeking a court order to shut the operation down. A hearing before a federal judge is scheduled in Washington later this month.

Washington Examiner [10/14/2025 12:56 PM, Emily Hallas, 1394K] reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) warned on Tuesday that he is closely monitoring protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine if congressional scrutiny could be warranted in the future. Johnson weighed in on anti-ICE demonstrations during a press conference on Capitol Hill, in which he noted some protests have turned violent. Noting the constitutional right to free speech, the speaker agreed that protesters enjoy broad liberties to express opposition to ICE. But he added that violence against law enforcement crosses a boundary. Johnson said tensions had not yet increased to the level that could trigger investigations from a relevant congressional committee in the House. However, he is "closely" watching the situation to see if that could change, because "you’re supposed to be on the side of the good, not the crazy radicals." "What I’ve seen is the abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists," Johnson said, noting naked bicyclers in Portland protesting ICE this week and the federal government’s arrest of several people accused of physically assaulting officers. "It’s getting really ugly… This is serious business," the speaker told reporters. "Look, I was a First Amendment lawyer. I understand, as a religious liberty defense lawyer, I understand free speech. We vigorously protect the right to free speech, but you cannot assault law enforcement officers. And there is a line that has to be maintained." "I’ve not seen them cross the line yet, and we have committees that [hold] jurisdiction who have that responsibility, but it’s not risen to that level," Johnson continued. "But we’re watching that closely. And we, the Republican Party, stand for law enforcement. That’s where we’re going to be."

FOX News [10/14/2025 10:29 PM, Emma Bussey, 40621K] reports Los Angeles County leaders declared a local state of emergency in the region Tuesday, according to local officials. News of the proclamation was shared in a news release online by LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s office. The measure was said to be a response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across LA County, which is home to more than 10 million people and one of the U.S.’s largest immigrant populations. The county can now offer to support residents financially who have been impacted by the raids, including rent relief and accessing state funds for any legal aid. "What’s happening in our communities is an emergency and Los Angeles County is treating it like one," Horvath said in the statement. "Declaring a Local Emergency ensures that the full weight of County government is aligned to support our immigrant communities who are being targeted by federal actions," she added. The proclamation notice, dated Oct. 9, said that it will remain in effect until terminated by the Board of Supervisors. County departments were ordered to "take necessary emergency actions to protect and stabilize communities impacted by federal immigration actions," it read. County supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of the emergency proclamation to mobilize county resources and support affected communities despite potential legal challenges from the federal government. County officials claimed the raids have "created a climate of fear, leading to widespread disruption in daily life and adverse impacts to our regional economy," including decreased workplace attendance, temporary or permanent business closures, and increased strain on schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Supervisor Janice Hahn said the emergency declaration was needed to respond to "the fear, the pain and the disorder these ICE raids are causing our community.” "We have entire families who are destitute because their fathers or mothers were taken from their workplaces," she said. "I want our immigrant communities to know that we are in this emergency with them," she added. Supervisor Holly Mitchell also added that the raids have emboldened others to commit acts of race-based violence and hate. The one vote against the proclamation came from Board Chair Kathryn Barger, who warned that the county’s action could provoke legal consequences. "The federal government has sole authority to enforce federal immigration law, and local governments cannot impede that authority," Barger said. "We should instead advocate for meaningful immigration reform that is fair, pragmatic, and creates legal pathways for those who contribute to our communities.” In a statement to Fox News Digital, ICE said the "only state of emergency is the one the residents of Los Angeles face after electing officials who give a middle finger to the law.” "Perhaps the board should "supervise" funds to support law-abiding fire victims who still haven’t recovered, instead of criminal illegal aliens seeking refuge in their sanctuary city. While they publicly fear-monger, I would be shocked if they didn’t agree with ICE removing a child rapist from their neighborhood," spokesperson Emily Convington added. Fox News Digital also reached out to Horvath’s office for comment.

FOX News [10/15/2025 1:19 AM, Landon Mion, Bill Melugin, 40621K] reports two illegal migrants were taken into custody on Tuesday after crashing their vehicle into a Border Patrol vehicle in Chicago during an immigration enforcement operation, leading to a clash with protesters, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Luis Gerardo Pirela-Ramirez and Yonder Enrique Tenefe-Perez, both from Venezuela, were detained Tuesday morning for allegedly ramming a Border Patrol vehicle and attempting to flee the scene, according to a senior DHS source. The incident happened near South Avenue N, according to officials. "This morning while conducting an immigration enforcement operation in Chicago a vehicle, driven by an illegal alien, rammed a Border Patrol vehicle and attempted to flee the scene," a DHS spokesperson said. "Border Patrol pursued the vehicle and was eventually able to stop it utilizing an authorized precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver. Once the vehicle was stopped, the suspects, who are both illegal aliens, attempted to flee on foot. As Border Patrol arrested the subjects and attempted to secure the scene a crowd began to form and eventually turned hostile and eventually crowd control measures were used.” "This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers," the spokesperson continued. "The fact that this attack was carried out by two illegal immigrants, highlights the need for federal law enforcement to continue to do their job of enforcing the laws of our nation —all while receiving no pay thanks to the Democrats’ government shutdown.” A crowd began to gather following the incident. Chicago Police said they attempted to de-escalate the situation as federal agents were preparing to leave, but people in the crowd began throwing objects. Federal agents then deployed tear gas into the street, and 13 Chicago cops were exposed to the tear gas. "Chicago Police Department officers responded to the 10500 block of S. Avenue N at approximately 11:07 a.m. for a call of an auto accident involving federal authorities," the police department said in a statement. "CPD was not involved in any of the federal operations occurring at that location. Upon arrival to the scene, officers documented the traffic crash. Because this incident involved federal authorities, additional CPD supervisors responded to the scene to ensure the appropriate course of action was taken.” "A crowd began to form and as federal authorities were leaving the scene, CPD members attempted to de-escalate the situation for the safety of everyone, including community members who were gathering at the location," the statement added. "Individuals then began throwing objects at the federal agents, at which point the federal agents deployed tear gas into the street. Thirteen CPD members were exposed to the tear gas. Exposure reports will be completed for all CPD members who were exposed to the tear gas.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of "recklessly throwing tear gas into our neighborhoods and busy streets, including near children at school and CPD officers.” The New York Post [10/15/2025 1:01 AM, Zoe Hussain, 42219K] reports that a red SUV driven by a person suspected to be in the country illegally rammed into a Border Patrol vehicle before attempting to flee the scene in the city’s Southeast Side, Department of Homeland Security officials said. Agents used an "authorized precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver," causing the Red SUV to fly backwards through an intersection before slamming into another vehicle, CNN reported. Two people stumbled out of the vehicle as it moved and began to run as federal agents in a white SUV continued to chase after them. Border Patrol agents eventually caught and cuffed the two individuals, but the crowd turned "hostile," DHS told the outlet. As police supervisors responded to the scene around 11 a.m. to de-escalate the situation and federal authorities began to leave, people in the crowd began to hurl objects at federal agents, the Chicago Police Department said, according to the outlet. Federal agents then deployed tear gas canisters at the angered residents, causing plumes of white smoke to fill the air. Thirteen police officers were also exposed to the chemical agent, cops said. Photos from the scene also captured agents aiming crowd control weapons directly at members of the crowd in close range. Two US citizens, A 16-year-old and a 19-year-old, were reportedly detained by federal agents during the melee despite allegedly not throwing any objects, a witness told WGNTV. "As the tear gas was thrown into the community members, we all ran. They attacked two people that I know because they were close," she told the outlet. Mother Juanita Garnica was at work when she got a call that Border Patrol agents had detained her 16-year-old son, the outlet reported. "They said, ‘Juanita you have an emergency. ICE took your son. They beat him up. They body-slammed him,’" Garnica told reporters. Her son was allegedly held for five hours in the garage of a federal building without being charged or allowed a call or an attorney, the outlet reported. Nineteen-year-old Warren King was also grabbed by one agent and slammed to the ground as his friend screamed at officers that he was a US citizen, according to the publication. King was reportedly transported downtown and then brought to Calumet Park. His family, who had been tracking his location, arrived with his birth certificate to prove he is a citizen, the outlet reported. The number of individuals who clashed with federal agents is not immediately clear. DHS and the Chicago Police Department did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday called federal agents’ treatment of protesters "abominable," saying they’ve been hit with tear gas, pepper pellets, and rubber bullets "just when they’re holding signs and expressing themselves.” Several violent clashes have occurred between federal agents and angry protestors since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month launched "Operation Midway Blitz" in the Windy City. The initiative aims to "target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor [JB] Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets," the department announced in an X post. CNN [10/14/2025 7:26 PM, Cindy Von Quednow, Omar Jimenez, Whitney Wild, Bill Kirkos, 606K] reports Chicago police officers responded to and documented the crash but were not involved in any federal operations at the location of the crash, the agency told CNN. Additional police supervisors responded to the scene, and as federal authorities were leaving, officers attempted to deescalate the situation, police said. People in the crowd began throwing objects at the federal agents, who deployed tear gas into the street, CPD said. As a crowd began to gather, many in the neighborhood began to verbally confront federal agents on the scene, aerial video from CNN affiliate WLS showed. A separate cell phone video provided to CNN appears to show an agent throw a cell phone that was recording him. Rocks were being thrown in the melee, WLS reported. The crowd dispersed after tear gas was deployed, video showed. Neighbors told CNN they believe three other people were arrested in connection with the gathering that followed the crash. Anger from the neighborhood wasn’t just due to the presence of federal agents, the witness said, but also from the manner of Tuesday’s arrests. "We’re angry at them for chasing people in our neighborhood, going full velocity on these streets when, you know, we have children walk around," the witness said. "These children are going to school, you know? And they’re flying down the streets.” At one point "they just started tear-gassing," the witness said. "We were burning, I couldn’t even breathe.” Thirteen police officers were exposed to the chemical agent, police said. DHS said the incident "reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers.”

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New York Times [10/14/2025 8:32 PM, Julie Bosman and Jamie Kelter Davis, 135475K] reports federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown. The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby. After the crash, dozens of additional immigration agents in masks arrived and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, “ICE go home!” As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the federal agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation when two people tried to flee and hit the agents’ vehicle. “This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,” the D.H.S. said in a statement. The statement said that federal agents used “crowd control measures” after a group of people gathered and turned hostile. It was one of many turbulent episodes to erupt in Chicago in recent days. Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have roamed the city and suburbs making arrests, often pulling up to people walking along sidewalks, stopping them and questioning them. The agents repeatedly have been observed releasing smoke bombs, tear gas and pepper balls to disperse residents who gather or capture videos on cellphones, including when the agents were making arrests in densely populated neighborhoods. Chicago police officers, who have been called to the scenes of some clashes, have been exposed to tear gas from federal agents twice in the last two weeks. As the intensity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has risen, residents of Chicago are increasingly pushing back with fury. In the last several weeks, Chicagoans have formed volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents, posting alerts on Facebook and in Signal group chats when agents are seen. If agents are spotted on the street, motorists lean on their horns as a warning and sometimes give chase. Around the city last weekend, pairs of volunteers were seen with orange whistles around their necks, blowing the whistles at the first sight of immigration agents. One Chicago resident, Chris Molitor, stationed himself on a street corner on the North Side on Tuesday, holding a sign denouncing President Trump and wearing a shirt critical of ICE. “We’re seeing videos of people being abused,” said Mr. Molitor, 64, who works in hospitality, nodding in the direction of a local taqueria whose owners were questioned by ICE. “There’s got to be a pushback of some kind.”

Bloomberg [10/14/2025 9:30 AM, Alicia A. Caldwell, 18207K] reports with migrant crossings at the Mexico border at their lowest level in five decades, US Border Patrol agents who normally police the frontier are being sent to cities deep inside the country to assist in federal immigration crackdowns. The shift has brought agents trained to spot illegal border crossings into densely populated neighborhoods — sometimes with military-style tactics that lead to violent confrontations. In places such as Chicago, they are joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement officials carrying out President Donald Trump’s directive to round up people without permission to be in the country. As the administration refocuses its priorities toward the country’s interior following a dramatic drop in new migrants, critics including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson say the tactics risk inflaming already volatile situations and fanning violence. Immigration officials say they are targeting gang members and other criminals. “Why are we in the greater Chicago area? To arrest bad people,” Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief leading operations there, said on social media, where he and his agents are often filmed arresting migrants. Tensions between agents and local residents have grown in Chicago, where Trump’s attempts to use the National Guard has already made the city a flashpoint. Protesters often crowd around officials trying to make arrests, contributing to the chaos. At least two people have been shot, one fatally, by federal authorities.

Breitbart [10/14/2025 11:44 AM, John Binder, 2416K] reports Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) is suggesting Democrats may attempt to prosecute Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for enforcing federal immigration law. During an interview with FOX 32 Chicago this week, Pritzker proposed prosecuting DHS officials and ICE agents for arresting illegal aliens in the sanctuary state of Illinois. "The tables will turn one day," Prtizker told reporter Paris Schutz: These people should recognize that maybe they’re not gonna get prosecuted today, although we’re looking at doing that, but they may get prosecuted after the Trump administration because the statute of limitations would not have run out. [Emphasis added]. Pritzker said he was in talks with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul (D) and other attorneys regarding a potential criminal investigation into DHS officials and ICE agents. "We’re talking to the state’s attorneys and Attorney General to see how they can go at this because what we want to make sure is that they follow the law," Pritzker said.

CNN [10/14/2025 5:53 PM, Bill Kirkos, 18595K] reports attorneys for a Chicago TV station employee detained by federal agents Friday dispute accusations from the Department of Homeland Security that she was taken into custody because she threw objects at a Border Patrol car, instead saying she was simply walking to a bus stop on her way to work. Debbie Brockman, who works at WGN, plans to "pursue all legal avenues available" after being "violently detained" for seven hours before being released without charges, her lawyers said in a statement Tuesday. Brockman was arrested for assault on a federal law enforcement officer, according to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. US Border Patrol was conducting immigration enforcement when "several violent agitators used their vehicles to block in agents in an effort to impede and assault federal officers," McLaughlin said in a statement Friday. Officers struck a suspect’s vehicle to create an opening, and as they were driving, "Deborah Brockman, a U.S. citizen, threw objects at Border Patrol’s car," McLaughlin said. The Chicago Tribune [10/14/2025 1:25 PM, Robert Channick, 4829K] reports that "This incident should be alarming and horrifying to every single person in this country," Brad Thomson, a Chicago attorney representing Brockman, said in the release. "If armed, masked, federal agents are snatching U.S. citizens off the street as they walk to work and throwing them in unmarked vehicles, you can only imagine what these agents must be willing to do to our immigrant neighbors and people who dare to speak out against them." The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declined to comment further Tuesday, referring back to a statement issued Friday by Tricia McLaughlin, the agency’s assistant secretary, which alleged that Brockman "threw objects at Border Patrol’s car" and was arrested during an immigration enforcement action. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched Operation Midway Blitz on Sept. 8 with the stated mission of targeting "criminal illegal aliens" in Chicago and Illinois. As of Oct. 1, DHS reported that ICE and Border Patrol agents had arrested more than 800 people during the initiative, including a number of high-profile raids.

AP [10/14/2025 2:44 PM, Mike Schneider, 4722K] reports that Florida officials failed to disclose that they had applied for federal reimbursement for an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," leading to a false impression before an appellate court panel that put on hold a judge’s order to wind down operations at the facility, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. The public records lawsuit was filed in state court in Tallahassee by the Friends of the Everglades, which along with another environmental group and the Miccosukee Tribe, sued federal and state agencies, alleging they didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams agreed and ordered in August that the facility needed to wind down operations within two months. However, that injunction was put on hold in early September when a federal appellate court panel in Atlanta issued a stay, pending the outcome of an appeal, allowing the facility to stay open for the time being. A majority on the three-judge panel said the state-run facility didn’t need to undergo a federally required environmental impact study because Florida had yet to receive federal money for the project. "If the federal defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the facility, they may need to first conduct an EIS (environmental impact statement)," the judges wrote in their Sept. 4 stay order. The state of Florida had applied for federal funding on Aug. 7 but never mentioned it to the federal court judge or the appellate court panel and hasn’t corrected the panel’s "misimpressions," according to Monday’s public records lawsuit. A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Emergency Management on Monday didn’t respond to a request for comment over the public records lawsuit.

ABC News [10/14/2025 11:46 PM, Beatrice Peterson, 31733K] Video: HERE reports two 15-year-olds were sentenced on Tuesday in connection with the August attack on former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee Edward Coristine, a source familiar with the case confirmed to ABC News. A 15-year-old boy, who had pleaded guilty to felony assault, robbery and simple assault, was sentenced to 12 months of probation. A 15-year-old girl, who pleaded guilty to simple assault, will serve nine months’ probation, according to the source. Both were arrested shortly after the alleged attempted unarmed carjacking that left 19-year-old Coristine injured just days before President Donald Trump ordered federal surge of law enforcement and National Guard in the nation’s capital. Coristine worked under Elon Musk at DOGE until June, when Musk left the Trump administration, sources familiar with Coristine’s employment told ABC News. The teens had faced the maximum possibility of being held in custody under the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services until age 21. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CNN [10/14/2025 7:07 PM, Holmes Lybrand, 606K] reports residents of the nation’s capital voiced their increased opposition and distrust of federal officers — especially around the administration’s deportation efforts — during jury selection Tuesday in the trial of an anti-ICE protester accused of assaulting an officer. For about three hours, attorneys questioned potential jurors about their ability to be impartial in the trial of Sydney Reid, who was arrested in July while she filmed the arrest of a non-citizen. Nearly a dozen people in the federal jury pool said they couldn’t be impartial in the case because of their feelings. "I have very bad views of them," one woman told the judge presiding over the case of immigration officers. "Just last month," she said through an immediate rush of tears, apologizing for their interruption, "my cousin and my aunt were taken from me.” The woman said she couldn’t be an impartial juror in Reid’s trial, adding that her family has faced growing financial difficulties as her dad and mom "have stopped working, because of the fear" of federal law enforcement. "I’m very sorry about what has happened," the presiding judge, Sparkle Sooknanan, said before excusing the woman. Prosecutors, after failing three times to secure an indictment through a grand jury, charged Reid with simple assault. They say she thrusted her knee upward in a threatening manner toward a federal officer who was holding her back while she was filming. Reid’s attorneys argue the movement of her knee was reactionary and didn’t, in any way, constitute an assault of the officer, who was not injured. Residents of DC were questioned during the jury selection process whether they had any feelings toward ICE and law enforcement that would prevent them from serving on the jury. "Since January, the city has changed and I’m very distraught," one woman told the judge when asked about her views of ICE. "I would like them to be gone.” "Morally I feel like I would struggle," another potential juror said, before adding that she would be unable to render an impartial verdict in the case. Several other potential jurors wrestled with whether they could be fair. "Honestly, and I can’t believe I’m saying this in a courtroom, I don’t trust government like I used to," one person — who was not dismissed but ultimately was not appointed to sit on the jury — told the judge. When pressed on whether they would be able to fairly consider the testimony of ICE officers who might testify in the case, one potential juror said they would "have a hard time believing their integrity.”

Breitbart [10/14/2025 12:02 PM, Sean Moran, 2416K] reports the Trump administration will continue to pay troops and law enforcement and issue more reductions in force of federal bureaucrats as the Democrat shutdown continues, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said on Tuesday. "OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence. Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs [reductions in force], and wait," OMB wrote on X. As news outlets say that this Democrat shutdown could be one of the nation’s longest, the Trump administration has moved to pay the nation’s service members and law enforcement, and continue reductions in force (RIFs). During a typical government shutdown federal workers are furloughed and do not receive pay. However, the Trump administration has moved to issue RIFs that eliminate a position within the morass of the federal government. Initial reports have found that the Trump administration has already swiftly issued roughly 4,600 RIFs across many major departments of the federal government, including the Commerce Department, Education Department, Energy Department, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Treasury Department. "The President, through OMB, has determined that agencies should operate more efficiently and has directed them to consider steps to optimize their workforces in light of the ongoing lapse in appropriations," the Justice Department wrote in a legal filing. "These RIF numbers from the court filing are just a snapshot in time. More RIFs are coming," an OMB spokesman said.

Blaze [10/14/2025 8:10 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1442K] reports President Donald Trump said that a very wealthy person offered to pay the wages for the military troops if the government shutdown continued. The president made the comments to reporters on Tuesday as he sat next to Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House. ‘This is a position that is being forced upon us by Democrats.’. "I actually have a man who is a very wealthy person ... who called — a donor, a great gentleman. And he said, ‘If there’s any money necessary, shortfall for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it,’ meaning he will pay it," the president said. "How about that?". But Trump said he refused the offer. "I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to need it. We’re going to take care of our troops,’" he added. "But this was a position that’s being forced upon us by Democrats.” Video of the president’s statement was widely circulated on social media. Trump said in a post on Truth Social Saturday that the administration was seeking alternate methods to pay the troops. "If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th," he posted. "That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th.” Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem posted on social media that she had secured funding to pay the U.S. Coast Guard. "While Democrats have played politics with military pay to fight for illegal aliens, the US Coast Guard has been defending our maritime borders, stopping the flow of deadly narcotics and illegal immigration into our country, and countering America’s adversaries around the world," she said in part. RELATED: Mass firings to begin ‘in a day or two’ over government shutdown, Trump official says. "Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the One Big Beautiful Bill," Noem added, "the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week as they continue to carry out their critical homeland security and military missions.” Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget has reported that the federal government has laid off more than 4,000 employees during the shutdown.

AP [10/14/2025 4:41 PM, Lisa Mascaro, 2983K] reports that President Donald Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the nation has ever seen, giving his budget office rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired, which programs are cut or survive — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce. As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing jobs in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. Trump said programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.” Speaking during an event at the White House, Trump added, “We’re being able to do things that we were unable to do before.” On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency was relying on Trump’s big tax cuts law for funding to make sure members of the Coast Guard are also paid. “We at DHS worked out an innovative solution,” Noem said in a statement. Thanks to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” she said, “the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week.”

Bloomberg [10/14/2025 3:12 PM, Emily Birnbaum, et al., 18207K] reports President Donald Trump pledged to release a list of federal programs slated for cuts later this week, the White House’s latest threat to slash the federal bureaucracy and put pressure on Democrats to end the impasse over the shutdown. “So we’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we wanted to close up or that we never wanted to happen,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “The Democrats are getting killed, and we’re going to have a list of them on Friday.” The threat is the latest effort from the White House to make the shutdown — now in its 14th day — as painful as possible for Democrats. It also marks another end-run by the administration around Congress, which determines how federal funds are spent. The White House has already terminated more than 4,000 federal workers and suspended funding for clean energy and transportation programs in Democratic-run states, escalating the standoff with Democrats. Still, polls suggest that it’s Democrats who hold a slight edge over Republicans on winning the blame game for the shutdown. The two parties show no signs of resolving the impasse soon, despite millions of people going without paychecks and mounting air travel delays. The White House budget office earlier Tuesday vowed to continue reductions in force — the government’s term for layoffs — of federal workers. However, the Office of Management and Budget said that military members and federal law enforcement would be paid, signaling the Trump administration is digging in. “OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” the Office of Management and Budget posted on social media on Tuesday. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.” Those layoffs marked the first large-scale ouster of federal employees during a funding lapse in modern history, going beyond the furloughs that have characterized past shutdowns. Republicans claim the terminations are a necessary consequence of the shutdown, an assertion Democrats and federal budget experts have disputed.

Breitbart [10/14/2025 2:53 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2416K] reports the Democrat-led state of Oregon is on track to spend $500 million more on a program that includes free health care for illegal migrants than on its state police budget, according to reports. According to state reports, the Healthier Oregon Program (HOP) has a budget currently set at $1.3 billion. The program, which launched in 2022, has seen a rise of 1,100 percent in costs since it launched. Meanwhile, the Oregon State Police have a budget of just over $717 million. The Oregon Health Authority website says, "Starting July 1, 2023, immigration/citizenship status no longer affects whether someone qualifies for OHP [Full Oregon Health Plan].” Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin blasted the state for its obscenely lopsided budgeting. "Absurd. Oregon will spend $500 million+ MORE on free health care for immigrants regardless of legal status than on state police in its current budget period," McLaughlin wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. "Oregon to spend $1.5 billion in state & federal taxpayer dollars on a program that offers health benefits to illegal aliens from 2025- 2027," she added. "They budgeted $717 million on Oregon State Police.”

NewsMax [10/15/2025 11:21 PM, Sam Barron, 4109K] reports Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is calling on the Department of the Treasury to undertake a comprehensive review of rules that allow illegal immigrants to obtain financial services and access to the U.S. banking system. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Cotton wants a review of the regulations governing the acceptance of foreign identification documents for opening bank accounts in the country. "Many of these individuals have accessed the U.S. banking system using foreign-issued identification documents such as Matricula cards, without verifying immigration status," Cotton wrote in his letter. "Major financial institutions currently accept these foreign documents as primary identification, effectively extending the privileges of our financial system to those who entered or remain in the country illegally," Cotton continued. Cotton said only people who respect American laws and sovereignty should have access to its banking system. "When individuals are allowed to open accounts without verifying legal status, we are permitting illegal aliens to establish financial roots and integrate economically, all while bypassing the legal channels that millions use properly," Cotton said. The Arkansas senator said he wants the Treasury Department to explore whether the USA PATRIOT Act or the Bank Secrecy Act could be used to prevent illegal aliens from opening accounts at U.S. financial institutions. "Our immigration laws exist to protect American workers, ensure national security, and maintain our sovereignty," Cotton said. "Financial regulations should not undermine these objectives.”

Daily Caller [10/14/2025 7:15 PM, Mariane Angela, 835K] reports Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said on Bloomberg Tuesday that she would fight back if President Donald Trump deploys federal troops to her home state. Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and he has signaled plans to send them nationwide to enforce federal immigration operations. Appearing on "Bloomberg: Balance of Power," Warren rejected the idea of federal intervention in Massachusetts. "Mayor Wu put out a very strong statement about this and said, ‘We’re not going to do this.’ She’s also put out a strong statement when police officers got hurt, when there had been a protest. Look, everybody has problems. Things happen, but that’s why we have our local police. That’s why we have our state police, and they are doing an excellent job," Warren said. Warren said she would support legal action if Trump attempted to override state authority. "Oh, yes," Warren said when the host asked if she’d pursue legal action against the deployment of troops. "Look, what Donald Trump is trying to do right now in California, in Illinois, is pretty clearly illegal. And the courts have already said so across the board, that he does not have the authority to engage in this kind of takeover of American cities, same thing for Portland. But this is about more than just what is legal. This is about Donald Trump trying to find as many ways as possible to suppress, to shut up, to hush anyone who disagrees with Donald Trump.” The Massachusetts senator warned that Trump’s intentions go beyond law enforcement and reflect a deeper pattern of suppressing political dissent. "That’s true whether we’re talking about mayors of big cities or we’re talking about late night comedians or we’re talking about elected officials," Warren said. "Donald Trump cares most about using the federal government and its power to silence dissent rather than to advance the interests of the American people. That is the central problem we have, and it just keeps cropping up over and over, because Donald Trump wants government to serve him personally, not the American people.” Trump’s troop deployment in the Los Angeles area in June has yielded results, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing in late August that ICE and Border Patrol agents had apprehended their 5,000th illegal migrant since the crackdown began in June. Trump deployed National Guard troops and assumed control of the Metropolitan Police Department after a string of violent crimes in Washington, vowing to "reestablish law and order and safety" in the capital. The move followed a series of high-profile attacks, including the fatal shootings of two Israeli Embassy staff members in May and a 21-year-old congressional intern in June. Following the deployment, robberies dropped by 42% and carjackings plunged 85% in Washington after Trump’s crackdown began, according to police union data released Aug. 25. As of Aug. 7, law enforcement had made 1,841 arrests and seized 188 illegal firearms, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Daily Signal [10/14/2025 8:00 AM, Deroy Murdock, 549K] reports President Donald Trump correctly designated Antifa a domestic-terrorist group. "Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence," his Sept. 22 executive order declared. "This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.". "Not so fast!" the Trump-hating Left responds. They consider Antifa, at worst, Boy Scouts in a bad mood. The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols dismissed Antifa-led chaos in Portland, Oregon, as the work of "costumed pranksters." Elsewhere, an Atlantic headline giggled: "Portland’s ‘War Zone’ Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online." Never mind Antifa’s red, white, and black flag; Mark Bray’s "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook" (Melville House, 2017), and this extremist group’s recognition by the Anti-Defamation League, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel swears: "There is no Antifa. This is an entirely imaginary organization. There is not an Antifa." "Antifa isn’t an organization!" MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle insisted Wednesday. That night, CNN’s Erin Burnett claimed that "Antifa-linked violence is rare and limited." Grabien’s Tom Elliott artfully has curated 10 on-camera lies from Antifa deniers who argue that this brutal outfit is less of a thing than Captain Crunch. Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., denied the mayhem that Antifa currently perpetrates in Portland. "Many of my constituents have been engaged for quite a long time," Dexter shrugged. "Most of them are middle-aged women who are just trying to bear witness.". "They’re not bearing witness. They’re bearing arms," Fox News’ Jesse Watters observed Thursday evening. Citing a recent, locally shot video, he added: "This middle-aged woman’s packing a machete." An Oct. 8 White House fact sheet stripped the varnish that left-wing apologists have slathered all over Antifa.

Chicago Tribune [10/14/2025 6:00 AM, Amy Dru Stanley and Craig Becker, 4829K] reports last month, a federal judge observed that masked figures were creating terror on American streets — not criminals but agents of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. "Law enforcement in the United States has usually been performed in the open," wrote Judge William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. "Images of plain-clothed, masked federal agents — faceless agents of the federal government — snatching a non-violent person off the streets" have created "fear in citizens and non-citizens alike.". We’ve all seen the arrests in our neighborhoods and felt that fear. We’ve watched the raids unfold on the news: on the streets, on college campuses, in workplaces, in homes, outside courtrooms, in Home Depot parking lots. ICE agents wearing masks, violently detaining people, holding them captive, disappearing the suspects. And we’ve heard the explanation that masking protects the ICE agents. "If you expose them," President Donald Trump has said, "you put them in great danger, tremendous danger.". But that rationale is indefensible, as it would apply to every public official and employee involved in the criminal justice system, all of whom face the threat of retaliatory violence. Moreover, severe penalties exist for attacking or intimidating law enforcement officers. Surely a judge who sentences convicted criminals to prison is as much at risk as ICE agents, yet the notion is absurd that judges should be anonymous or allowed to mask their faces in the courtroom. Anti-masking bills have been introduced in Congress — including the "No Secret Police Act" and "No Anonymity in Immigration Enforcement Act"— but the measures have no chance of enactment under GOP control. Recently, Chicago and California banned masked arrests, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has stated: "We will NOT comply." According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, assaults on ICE agents are up by more than 1,000% this year and masking has been informally tolerated to prevent doxxing, harassment and violence. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department has begun to prosecute people who follow agents or publicize their addresses. Yet ICE has issued no policy requiring mask use to protect agents — nor any official guidelines on masking at all. Appearing on Fox News in July, the acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, equivocated. "I’m not a fan of the masks," he said. "I think we could do better, but we need to protect our agents and officers."

Los Angeles Times [10/14/2025 6:00 AM, Staff, 14862K] reports as a young recruit, the first thing I learned when I pinned on a badge was simple but profound: Power must always be visible and accountable. A nameplate, a badge number, an agency insignia — those aren’t just pieces of metal and cloth. They’re promises that those who wield the authority of the state can be identified, questioned and held responsible for their actions. That’s why California’s new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2026, should be welcomed by anyone who values the rule of law. It will make it a misdemeanor for any law enforcement officer — federal or local — to conceal their identity with a mask during enforcement actions in public spaces such as schools, hospitals or places of worship. The goal is straightforward: When government agents act in the name of the people, the people should know who they are. Predictably, critics call the measure "political theater." Some insist that "federal law trumps state law." Others argue that agents have a "right" to wear masks — and that if they’re arresting undocumented people, "who cares?". Those claims are not only wrong but betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what policing in a democracy is supposed to look like — and why accountability is not optional. The line between a lawful arrest and an abduction is thinner than most people realize. What separates them is the ability of the public to identify who is acting under color of law. When that ability is removed, trust collapses and fear takes its place.

The Hill [10/14/2025 7:30 AM, Arturo McFields, 12595K] reports the U.S. is at war with drug cartels. The news should be cause for celebration, but some are trying to discredit and derail these efforts. According to the detractors, the Cartel of the Suns doesn’t exist. Killing drug traffickers is a war crime. The U.S., they argue, should relinquish its regional leadership and pursue ostrich diplomacy. In this context of retorts and recriminations, the Trump administration is not giving up or giving in. On the contrary, it is determined to track, kill and destroy the drug cartels. This isn’t propaganda; it’s a promise being fulfilled in real time. The war on drugs is no easy task, especially in an environment of impunity and resilience. The Cartel of the Suns, for example, led by Nicolas Maduro, has remained entrenched in power for 26 years. In his first term, President Trump declared Maduro a narcoterrorist and launched a barrage of economic sanctions, recognized a different man as interim president, established a coalition of 50 countries and placed a $15 million bounty on the tyrant and his cronies. Nothing worked. In 2025, Trump faces Maduro once again. His administration has deployed destroyers, nuclear submarines, amphibious ships, drones, F-35 fighters planes and a $50 million bounty, the largest in U.S. history. This time, the U.S. is determined to finish the job. A report by New York Times noted that the Trump administration has drawn up multiple military plans for an escalation. Those operations could also include plans designed to force Maduro from power. This war on drugs is just beginning, and it is not like President Richard Nixon’s public enemy number one strategy or President Ronald Reagan’s "Just Say No" campaign.

AP [10/14/2025 9:46 AM, Jason Dearen, Jim Mustian and Dorany Pineda, 31753K] reports the Nigerian man described being roused with other detainees in September in the middle of the night. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers clasped shackles on their hands and feet, he said, and told them they were being sent to Ghana, even though none of them was from there. When they asked to speak to their attorney, he said, the officers refused and straitjacketed the already-shackled men in full-body restraint suits called the WRAP, then loaded them onto a plane for the 16-hour-flight to West Africa. Referred to as “the burrito” or “the bag,” the WRAP has become a harrowing part of deportations for some immigrants. “It was just like a kidnapping,” the Nigerian man, who’s part of a federal lawsuit, told The Associated Press in an interview from the detainment camp in which he and other deportees were being held in Ghana. Like others placed in the restraints interviewed by the AP, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The AP identified multiple examples of ICE using the black-and-yellow full-body restraint device, the WRAP, in deportations. Its use was described to the AP by five people who said they were restrained in the device, sometimes for hours, on ICE deportation flights dating to 2020. And witnesses and family members in four countries told the AP about its use on at least seven other people this year. ICE and DHS would not answer detailed questions from the AP and refused a request for the government’s policy for when and how to use the WRAP. “The use of restraints on detainees during deportation flights has been long standing, standard ICE protocol and an essential measure to ensure the safety and well-being of both detainees and the officers/agents accompanying them,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS’ spokesperson, said in an email to AP. “Our practices align with those followed by other relevant authorities and is fully in line with established legal standards.” The agency would not specify those authorities or describe its practices.

The Hill [10/14/2025 6:06 PM, Julia Shapero, 12595K] reports Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that Facebook has removed a page used to “dox and target” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Chicago after the Justice Department reached out to the social media platform. "The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs," Bondi wrote in a post on X. "The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement," she added. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that the group was removed for "violating our policies against coordinated harm.” NewsMax [10/14/2025 1:09 PM, James Oliphant, 4109K] reports that in a post on X, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the page was part of an effort to "dox and target" the approximately 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who have descended on the city as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement drive. Doxxing is the sharing of personal information about people online. A spokesperson for Meta confirmed that the company had removed the page from the Facebook platform for "violating our policies against coordinated harm." Neither Meta nor the DOJ provided more information on the page, and Reuters was unable to review it. Apple earlier this month removed apps that allowed users to track the movements of ICE agents following pressure from the Trump administration. Google also has made similar apps unavailable. The administration has threatened to prosecute makers of the tracking apps. ICE has been central to Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. Its agents have regularly raided and arrested migrants, and rights advocates say free speech and due process are often being infringed. The administration has asserted that left-wing protesters have been regularly harassing and interfering with ICE agents. Bondi did not provide evidence in her post on X of specific incidents connected to the Facebook page.

Reported similarly:
Chicago Tribune [10/14/2025 5:50 PM, Lauryn Azu, 4829K]
Washington Examiner [10/14/2025 4:16 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 1394K]

FOX News [10/14/2025 3:08 PM, Peter Pinedo, Andrew Mark Miller, 40621K] reports amid soaring assaults on federal law enforcement and following a recent shooting at a Dallas facility, a caller left a disturbing voicemail taunting immigration agents, saying he hopes "every one of those lawless c----" gets "doxxed one by one." This comes as assaults on ICE agents have risen by 1,000%, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement to Fox News Digital in response to the voicemail, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin blamed the rise in animosity against agents on rampant rhetoric "comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols," saying such rhetoric "has consequences." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [10/14/2025 2:20 PM, Peter D’Abrosca, 40621K] reports that a community college professor in Kansas has advocated doxxing ICE agents as well as community interference with their operations, an audit of a social media account belonging to him shows. Steve Werkmeister is an English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. He goes by Steve W and uses the handle swerkmeister on Bluesky, a predominantly left-wing spinoff of X, where he describes himself as a "slacker" and "left of the dial." On Monday, Werkmeister reposted a flyer distributed by a left-wing advocacy group teaching anti-ICE advocates to use whistles in order to disrupt ICE operations. The flyer explains that blowing whistles when ICE agents are in the area allows people to "follow ICE caravans," "alert neighbors to join in" and "catch up with the crowd." He also shared a post by John Pavlovitz, a known far-left internet activist, encouraging family members to "out" relatives who work for ICE. "Good people need to start outing their ICE family members, neighbors, and community members," the post says. "They need to be made into pariahs in the places decent Americans gather." On multiple occasions, Werkmeister refers to federal immigration enforcement as "kidnapping," and appears paranoid that he and his family will be "kidnapped" by ICE because of their "brown" skin. He said he communicated to the Johnson County Community College staff his desire to teach online from overseas. "I’ve talked to our chair and the college president to see if I can just move online and teach from a safe location overseas (my family and I can be kidnapped by the government at any time since our skin is brown), and so far they’re compassionately noncommittal (lots of empty phrases)," he said in an Oct. 10 post.

Daily Wire [10/14/2025 12:00 PM, Leif Le Mahieu, 2494K] reports despite an ongoing government shutdown, the Trump administration continues to arrest illegal aliens convicted of violent crimes from coast to coast. Over the weekend and into Columbus Day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents picked up over 20 illegal aliens convicted of crimes, including murder, theft, and drug dealing, the Department of Homeland Security told The Daily Wire. These arrests occurred as the government shutdown entered its third week, meaning ICE agents continue to work without pay. "While many Americans enjoyed the holiday weekend, our brave law enforcement worked without pay because of the Democrats’ government shutdown and continued to arrest the worst of the worst criminals — risking their lives to arrest murderers, pedophiles, and other serial criminals," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Wire. "We will not allow a government shutdown to stop us from making America safe again.” According to DHS, those detained during the arrests over the weekend included: Silvino Juan Martinez-Montesinos, an illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child in New York County, New York. Ruben Garibay Yanez, an illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of lewd lascivious acts with a child under 14 in Lancaster, California. During a government shutdown, ICE continues to work as those carrying out arrests and deportations are considered essential government workers. More than 19,000 of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) roughly 21,000 employees will work through a shutdown, according to a contingency plan released by DHS. And the working employees will assist in the agency’s law enforcement functions in cracking down on illegal immigration and illicit drugs.

Axios [10/14/2025 6:27 AM, Tina Reed, 12972K] reports the Trump administration’s rollback of a policy that prohibited immigration enforcement in hospitals is sparking fear and confusion in exam rooms and emergency departments amid a surge in ICE arrests. Health care workers say stepped-up enforcement is interfering with care in some instances, and lawyers say it has created enough privacy concerns that some are erasing whiteboards on patient floors and concealing medical records. Many hospitals don’t have clear protocols, Sandy Reding, president of the California Nurses Association and vice president for National Nurses United told Axios. That’s put nurses and other health workers in situations in which they have to confront ICE agents carrying warrants in unauthorized areas. A Homeland Security Department directive in January rescinded a Biden administration policy that designated hospitals, schools and churches "sensitive locations" that were off limits to immigration enforcement. That had the effect of giving Immigration Customs and Enforcement more leeway to detain individuals in hospitals. They are also able to closely monitor people in their custody who are brought in for medical care. Health systems have been seeking legal advice and stepping up training for employees about what’s permissible in public and private spaces. "The judicial warrant needs to be specific as to the place and who you’re looking for. It’s not going to say you can just walk into the ICU and check everybody," Douglas Grimm, head of ArentFox Schiff’s national health care practice and a former hospital administrator, told Axios.

The Hill [10/14/2025 10:24 AM, Judy Kurtz, 12595K] reports Martin Sheen says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sport masks in order to hide the fact that they’re "not proud of what they’re doing.". "I think one of the reasons so many of the soldiers and the ICE folks, I think that they’re covering their faces because they don’t want to show their emotion," Sheen, a longtime Democratic supporter and fundraiser, told Nicolle Wallace at the MSNBC Live event in New York on Saturday. "They don’t want to show that they’re not proud of what they’re doing — particularly when they’re dealing with mothers, and children and undocumented people who are of no threat whatsoever," the 85-year-old actor, who played fictional President Jed Bartlet on NBC’s "The West Wing," said. Despite criticism, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons has defended the use of masks for agents in the field. In his conversation with Wallace, Sheen said of ICE agents and officials, "People are doing this because they want to be on the side that’s winning. And it’s not going to last. It cannot last.".

CBS Boston [10/14/2025 5:15 PM, Matt Schooley, 39474K] Video: HERE reports the Everett, Massachusetts mayor said a 13-year-old who was taken into police custody and later detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents was a threat, but did not have a gun as has been alleged by Homeland Security. Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria held a news conference on Tuesday about the recent arrest of a young boy. DeMaria said the 13-year-old was arrested by the Everett Police Department on Thursday afternoon after making a "credible" violent threat against another boy. The teen was allegedly found with a 6-7 inch double-sided knife. The mayor did not release the name of the boy who was arrested during the news conference. The Department of Homeland Security posted on social media Tuesday that the teenager was also in possession of a gun at the time of his arrest. DeMaria and police said at the news conference that was not the case and the boy only had a knife. "Let me be clear, this could have been a tragedy in our schools. Thanks to the quick and decisive action of the Everett Police Department, it was prevented. Public safety is our No. 1 priority here, on our streets and especially in our schools," DeMaria said. According to the mayor, once the boy was in police custody, he went through the standard booking process. Following the arrest, ICE contacted the department and requested an immigration detainer. "Everett police does not make arrests based on immigration status. Police did not contact ICE about this recent juvenile arrest. ICE operates independently and has the authority to access certain law enforcement databases and take action on its own accord," DeMaria said.

New York Post [10/14/2025 6:15 PM, Brandon Cruz and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, 42219K] reports Nassau County will lock up 3,000 illegal immigrants this year, thanks to a special pact with the feds that has county cops teaming up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, officials said. The agreement calls for ICE to rent up to 50 cells at the East Meadow jail at $195 a night — and county officials said Tuesday that they will have held thousands of migrants in the US illegally by the end of the year. "Every community, especially the Hispanic American community in Nassau County, supports our cooperation with ICE so that their neighborhoods can be safe and their schools free from being overcrowded," Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said in a statement Tuesday. Blakeman announced the deal earlier this year, and said it not only opened up local jail space for illegal immigrants, it also called for 10 county cops to be designated to train with the feds and gives them unprecedented authority to detain migrants without warrants. "Nassau County is the first county in America to have a fully comprehensive agreement with ICE under the 287(g) program, and will continue to work with ICE to keep our county safe from unvetted illegal immigrants who commit crimes such as poisoning our young people with fentanyl," Blakeman said then. The 10 detectives have since been trained by ICE, but have not been called on or deployed by ICE to assist in any of their operations, county officials said Tuesday. Nonetheless, Nassau officials said in July that the joint effort yielded quick results, and said 1,400 immigrants had been held at that point — with the figure up to 2,188 detainees to date, and rising. So far, an average of 274 immigrants have been locked up every month — with June the busiest month so far with 437 immigrants detained, followed by 380 in April and 363 in August, the county said.

Axios [10/14/2025 6:22 AM, Sabrina Moreno and Steph Solis, 12972K] reports Virginia’s immigrant detention centers have been locking people away in solitary confinement at some of the highest levels in the country, according to data provided exclusively to Axios. The practice — which often unfolds out of public view — has spanned multiple administrations. But it has increased both in use and documentation nationwide over the past few years, per a report by Harvard University researchers and Physicians for Human Rights. Virginia’s ICE facilities in Farmville and Caroline County have risen in national rank for placing more people in solitary confinement between 2023 and this past August. Both are now among the nation’s top 10 for solitary confinement use despite being far smaller than other detention center sites in the U.S. From April 2024 to August 2025, Virginia had 874 people in solitary confinement, per ICE data analyzed by researchers. That’s 250 more people than what was recorded between Sept. 2018 and Sept. 2023. While Virginia’s latest numbers aren’t readily available, the state’s solitary confinement placements lasted 34 days on average from 2018 to 2023, per data shared with Axios. The national average was 26 days in that time frame, per researchers. The United Nations says anything over 15 days constitutes psychological torture.

Daily Caller [10/14/2025 11:37 AM, Jason Hopkins, 835K] reports that a previously deported illegal migrant allegedly killed a man in a hit-and-run accident after being released with no bond by a Democratic prosecutor. Wilmer Fuentes Mejia allegedly mowed down an American man with his vehicle in Durham, North Carolina, in September, according to WRAL. The foreign national — who had already been removed twice from the country — was previously arrested in 2020 for allegedly driving under the influence in Wake County, but was released by the county’s district attorney without bond. The incident follows years of debate over sanctuary policy in Wake County and the repeated arrest and release of Iryna Zarutska’s alleged killer in nearby Mecklenburg County. Richard Ferguson, Jr. was killed on Sept. 13 near a bus stop when a vehicle veered off the road, hit two signs and then collided with Ferguson, according to local reports. The 61-year-old was coming home from his second job and had just gotten off the city bus at the time of the incident. During a court appearance earlier this month, a prosecutor stated that Mejia had been deported from the country twice before, according to WRAL. A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about Mejia’s immigration history.

CBS Chicago [10/14/2025 12:28 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE reports Broadview residents say the area around an ICE facility there feels like "a fortress" as federal authorities must remove a fence by 11:59 p.m. Tuesday on a judge’s orders.

(B) NBC 5 News at 11:00am [10/14/2025 12:29 PM, Staff] reports that the deadline is near for the Department of Homeland Security to take down the fence that blocks the street outside of the ICE processing center in Broadview. A judge has ordered it to be removed by midnight tonight. More concrete barriers have gone up across from the facility, put in place by the village. In Forest Park, the mayor is accusing ICE agents of using excessive force on US citizens at Concordia Cemetery. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security says ICE was trying to detain immigrants who tried to get away by crossing the Des Plaines River. And they say they arrested the US citizens after they blocked the agents from that embankment.

Breitbart [10/14/2025 1:11 PM, Staff, 2416K] reports that Father Brendan Curran knows many Chicago Catholics who supported Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. But now they’re watching immigration raids across their city in horror — and have Pope Leo XIV sharing their alarm. "Almost to a person, they’re in shock," Curran told AFP. "This isn’t what they signed up for." Trump’s claim that Chicago is a virtual war zone, requiring him to deploy armed soldiers, is demonstrably false. But opposition to his hardline immigration crackdown is growing from a more peaceful source: the Catholic Church. Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago and is the first American ever to head the global Church, has been outspoken in rejecting Trump’s policies. Referring to the Church’s opposition to abortion — something Trump’s Republicans share with many Catholics — he cited the "inhuman treatment of migrants in the United States" and asked if that was "pro-life." Chicago is the nation’s third largest city, where 30 percent of the population is Latino or Hispanic, many of them Catholic. For Ariella Santoyo, a dress shop owner in the heavily Latino Little Village neighborhood west of Chicago, the reality of Trump’s presidency versus the hope has been brutal. Trump’s conservative promises, especially on abortion, "appeal to a lot of people" in her community, she said. But the immigration arrests — often conducted violently by masked, plainclothes men — were not what they wanted. "We get that sense a lot from… friends that voted for Trump — family members that I know of that voted who said, ‘Oh I never thought that this would happen.’". Images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel chasing down migrants, bundling them into vans, and spraying protesters with tear gas play well to many of Trump’s supporters.

NewsNation [10/14/2025 11:27 AM, Marisa Rodriguez, 8017K] Video: HERE reports a Chicago pastor is speaking out after being shot in the head with pepper-spray projectiles by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a protest last month. Reverend David Black is the lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. He’s part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) following what’s described as “lethal and brutal suppression of First Amendment rights.” The incident, that was captured on video, happened on Sept. 19 outside an ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois. Black said he was praying during the protest when he was struck several times in the head and body by pepper balls. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended the ICE agents in a statement on X. “What this clipped video doesn’t show is that these agitators were blocking an ICE vehicle from leaving the federal facility — impeding operations,” McLaughlin wrote. “Over and over again, law enforcement ordered these agitators to move off of federal property so the vehicle could move. Law enforcement verbally warned these agitators that they would use force if they did not move and stop impeding operations. They did not comply,” she added. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NewsMax [10/14/2025 11:01 AM, James Morley III, 4109K] reports a Chicago-based, left-wing organization is using social media to share strategies for confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, as deportation activities ramp up in the sanctuary city, The Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday. The Facebook page "Chicago Listener" has posted content that not only encourages aggression toward immigration officials but also suggests methods for targeting and damaging ICE vehicles. An Oct. 3 post that garnered more than 600 reactions featured photographic instructions on how to craft homemade spikes for disabling vehicles using a cut-up garden hose and nails. One of the comments on the Chicago Listener Facebook page complimented the tactic saying it was a "cheap good idea" and offered a variation on the construction adding one could "bend two nails at a 90 degree angle, chop the flat, put em together n give em a quick spot weld.". Another added, "Oil for the windshields," with a third commenting, "Tar would be harder to remove.". Recently, assaults on ICE personnel in the area have risen by 1,000%
The Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz in September, which aimed to "target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Gov. [JB] Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets." DHS announced last week that since the operation began nearly a month ago federal agents "have arrested more than 1,000 illegal aliens – including the worst of the worst pedophiles, child abusers, kidnappers, gang members, and armed robbers." The Facebook group also promoted a 9-liter spray tank sold by Spray Vandalz, a graffiti-supply store. When a follower asked how the canister would be used, Chicago Listener said it was meant to coat the windows of ICE vehicles with red paint from a distance.

NBC News [10/14/2025 6:26 PM, Daniella Silva and Natasha Korecki34509K] reports a teacher said tear gas drifted toward a school playground, forcing students and recess indoors. A viral video recorded near another school showed law enforcement dragging a woman out of her van and onto the ground. And students say they have seen ICE vehicles in their neighborhoods, leading them to feel frightened, according to one instructor. Educators say those incidents and others that have taken place as federal immigration agents increase arrests in Chicago are disrupting their jobs, upending their communities and traumatizing their students. "Everyone’s very anxious," said Sheena Shukla, a school social worker for Chicago Public Schools. "Can you imagine telling a 12-year-old that people are out there who might want to take their family? We can’t shield our children from these realities, so we provide them with a level of support that they can understand.” In response, school staff members have organized teams to report and respond to Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity around their schools, including patrolling the area, keeping concerned parents informed and helping escort some families to and from school, according to members of the Chicago Teachers Union. That work includes talking to their students in age-appropriate ways about what’s going on in their communities in a city that is nearly 30% Latino and more than 22% foreign-born, Shukla said. The Chicago Public Schools district is holding daily calls with city leaders and its labor partners. It said in a statement to NBC News that while there has been law enforcement activity near some schools, there have been no incidents inside its schools and facilities. Nonetheless, the district and the Chicago Teachers Union have been issuing guidance and taking steps in preparation for federal immigration enforcement since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. "School remains the safest and best place for students. CPS staff have safety protocols, including how to respond if federal representatives seek access to school property or interaction with students or staff," the district said. The Department of Homeland Security referred NBC News to a statement saying ICE does not target schools or children. "ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children. Criminals are no longer able to hide in America’s schools to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense," DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. "If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety. But this has not happened.” On Tuesday, DHS said on social media that its enforcement surge in the area, known as Operation Midway Blitz, "is making Illinois SAFE again" and had arrested over 1,500 people across Illinois, including criminals and gang members.

Telemundo [10/14/2025 1:27 PM, Jorge DeSantiago, 2218K] reports that Rubén Antonio Cruz, a Hispanic immigrant legally residing in Chicago, told the local Telemundo station in that Illinois city on Tuesday that a federal agent recently issued him a $130 fine after questioning him about his immigration status. The reason for the fine, according to the ticket, is that Cruz didn’t have proof of legal residency or a green card, in a case that is virtually unprecedented in the city. Cruz, 60, who was born in El Salvador, said he was sitting with a friend on a corner in the Rogers Park neighborhood when a vehicle approached them, almost on the sidewalk, and immigration officers got out. "They surprised me because I was there looking at my phone, and they got out right away, and boom! Right over here," the man said. They asked him if he had his papers, and he said yes, but at his house, and that he would be happy to show them to them if they would accompany him there. Cruz said the agents refused and instead put him in the van. There, according to the man, who has a heart condition, they interrogated him while they circled the block and verified his identity. After confirming his legal status, they let him go, but issued him a ticket. In theory, "all of us who are legal residents are required to always carry our card," said immigration attorney Salvador Cicero. However, he added that "we’ve never heard of anyone being fined for not having their papers." Cruz’s incident occurred on October 9. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not commented on the case, nor on whether it will begin enforcing the rule requiring residents to carry their green cards.

CNN [10/14/2025 8:38 PM, Sara Anwar, 18595K] reports 19-year-old Yurithsi Enciso’s video of her interaction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shortly after they detained her parents and older brother went viral after she posted the September encounter. She speaks publicly for the first time to CNN’s Maria Santana about the incident, along with her brother Moises Jr., who has since been released. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Telemundo Amarillo [10/14/2025 5:51 PM, Staff, 4K] reports a teenager with autism who had been missing for days was found in federal custody. The Texas Center for the Missing reported that Emanuel González García disappeared on October 4. Then that same day, Houston police reported that firefighters found him, and the young man told them he was a homeless person from another country. Officers were with Emanuel for four hours until the Child Protection Service (CPS) advised them to contact the Department of Health and Human Services. For days, Emanuel was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement while his family distributed leaflets and sought him out. They had no idea he had been found. Last Friday, Emanuel’s mother, Maria, spoke to her son for 30 minutes via FaceTime. Emanuel’s mother works together with the pro-immigrant organization FIEL, which initially reported that Emanuel was in ICE custody, but that agency denied it was. An ICE spokesperson said, “When his family could not be identified, ICE helped the Houston Police Department take the child to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. At no time was the minor in ICE custody.” Immigration Attorney Charles C. Foster believes that Emanuel and his family are in a difficult situation. “The normal thing is that the parents want to get the child back ... but they will run the risk that when they seek to recover it they will be arrested by ICE,” he said. The Houston Police Department said they carried out all checkups to corroborate that Emanuel was missing before taking him to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

New York Post [10/15/2025 1:39 AM, Richard Pollina, 42219K] reports a US Marine said his father was deported after both his parents were detained last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while at Camp Pendleton in California. Steve Rios told NBC 7 that his parents, Esteban Rios and Luisa Rodriguez, were picking up his pregnant younger sister, Ashley, and her husband, who is also a Marine, at the enormous West Coast base on Sept. 28 — just like they had done every weekend for the past few months while expecting their first child. But this time, Rios said, his parents were stopped at the gate and held for ICE agents, who detained them. They were released a few hours later with ankle monitors and picked up by their son, who said they were instructed to check in with the agency later that week. When Rios drove them to their check-in appointment a few days later, he said they waited for hours before being detained again. "I just kept on looking at my parents. I didn’t know if it would be the last time I’d see them," the young Marine said. Rios shared that his father was wearing a red shirt and a white hat, both of which said "Proud dad of a US Marine," when he was taken away and deported by ICE agents. "He said, ‘Yeah, this is my lucky shirt, so we’ll be fine,’" Rios recalled. He said he spoke briefly to his father on the phone the day after the second detention, and was told his parents were being held in the basement of the federal building that houses ICE and immigration court. They were later transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, NBC 7 reported. While his father was deported after being detained by ICE, it’s unclear if his mother suffered the same fate. Rios, who said he joined the Corps right out of high school to make his parents proud and is currently in the reserves after spending four years on active duty, mentioned that the couple came to the US from Mexico 30 years ago. He described them as hardworking, law-abiding members of their community with no criminal record, who washed cars and cleaned houses to get by. They were also waiting for green cards and work visas that he sponsored when they were detained. "It was just making them proud, right? I’ve seen all the struggles they’ve gone through," Rios said. "The least I could do, right, and serve this country and try to, you know, put some time in. I don’t think amounts to what they’ve done.” He said the experience scared him because it was something he had worried about happening his whole life. Ashley, his younger sister, recalled the gut-wrenching phone call she received from her brother when their parents were first detained at Camp Pendleton’s front gate. "My brother texted me that they got stopped. And as soon as I heard that, I just started bawling," she said, fighting back tears. Now expecting her first child, Ashley said the ordeal has hit even harder. "It’s just hard because you just want to hear your parents’ voices and know everything will be OK," she said. "I’d always want my mom in that delivery room and everything, so it’s hard not to think about them.” The siblings said they’re uncertain what will happen next, but their faith is helping them stay strong. "They might get sent back. They might not," Rios said. "The only person that knows is up there.” A spokesperson for ICE told NBC 7 that the couple was detained, "as part of its routine operations, ICE arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws.” "All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States, regardless of nationality," the statement continued.

Breitbart [10/14/2025 3:09 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports a seven-time deported illegal alien is accused of killing six people in California after having been shielded from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the sanctuary state. Beto Cerillo-Bialva, a 53-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, has been arrested by the Napa County Sheriff’s Office and charged with gross vehicular manslaughter in connection with a fatal crash in September. According to police, Cerillo-Bialva was allegedly driving drunk with seven farmworkers in his vehicle when he hit a tree. As a result, six of the farmworkers died in the crash while Cerillo-Bialva and another passenger survived. Those killed in the crash are 42-year-old Loreto Ricardo Hernandez, 34-year-old Fernando Silverio, 39-year-old Araon Ruiz Ruiz, 32-year-old Beymar Reynosa Rodriguez, 39-year-old Demetrio Celerino Francisco, and 57-year-old Pedro Lopez Gomez. Cerillo-Bialva, ICE officials now reveal, had drunk driving convictions in 2020 and 2024 in California. After his 2024 drunk driving conviction, ICE tried to get custody of Cerillo-Bialva, but California’s sanctuary state law prevented police from handing him over to federal agents. Cerillo-Bialva, aside from having been deported seven times and having several drunk driving convictions, has also been convicted of possession of cocaine, driving without a license, and violating a court-ordered restraining order for domestic abuse.

Washington Post [10/14/2025 5:00 AM, John Woodrow Cox, 24149K] reports in his cell, the light glows all night, so he pulls a blanket over his head and burrows into the darkness. Then comes his nightmare, about the Taliban fighter whose face appears in a cloud of black smoke, beard long, hand reaching toward him. He runs and he runs until he wakes up, gasping. Now, in the light, he worries it’s not a dream but a vision of his future in Afghanistan, where he will be tortured and killed, where his wife will starve, where his son will be forced to join the militants, where his daughter will become an old man’s fourth wife. This is the place the U.S. government delivered him out of and the place it intends to send him back to. “I’m so scared from Taliban,” he said in a call to his attorney after another hard night at the immigrant detention center in Virginia. “Right now, my body is shaking. My hands are shaking, if I am thinking about them.” He and his wife had been among the tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to escape Kabul’s airport in August 2021, when a suicide bomber killed more than 180 people, including 13 U.S. service members. They heard the explosion, saw the wounded, and less than a day later, they packed into a U.S. military cargo plane bound for Qatar. In the United States, he was granted humanitarian parole, allowing the couple to remain while his case was processed. He applied for asylum in 2022 and waited for a decision that never came. Then, in July, as President Donald Trump’s administration was dismantling programs created to assist Afghan allies, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested him. At a time when the courts are denying a record number of asylum claims, a judge will soon decide whether he should be deported. If he is returned, he expects the Taliban to be waiting for him. For their family’s safety, The Washington Post is identifying the man in custody only by an initial, H. In a statement to The Post, Homeland Security’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, called H “illegal” and an “unvetted alien from a high threat country.”

The Hill [10/14/2025 4:23 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports the Trump administration revoked visas from 50 Mexican politicians amid its crack down on transnational narcotic sales. Sitting lawmakers including Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila, Nogales Mayor Juan Francisco Gim and former state and federal deputy Carlos Torres Torres had their travel documents revoked, according to the Mexico News Daily. More than a dozen others have also seen their visas revoked, according to Reuters. A majority of revocations were issued to members of Mexico’s ruling Morena party. "The Trump administration is finding new ways to exert more pressure on Mexico," Tony Wayne, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015 told the outlet. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said she was not made aware of the decision to revoke the visas prior to the Trump administration’s decision to take action against individuals. "The U.S. government has been very clear about this, that this is personal information…" Sheinbaum said during a press conference. She added that "it’s not information that they share with the Mexican government… unless there was an investigation that already had to do with public security, and then it could be known.” "But it’s personal information that the U.S. government does through the embassy or consulates," Sheinbaum continued. The country’s first female president has rejected a push from the Trump administration to allow the presence of U.S. military forces to help unveil drug cartel participants but has maintained that under her leadership, police are doing all they can to crack down on the sale of narcotics. "Visas, including those held by foreign officials, may be revoked at any time" for "activities that run contrary to America’s national interest," a senior State Department official told Reuters.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [10/14/2025 1:25 PM, Michael Dorgan, 40621K]

The Hill [10/14/2025 9:37 PM, Tara Suter, 12595K] reports the Trump administration revoked six visas over comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to the State Department. "The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans," the State Department said Tuesday in a thread on the social platform X. "The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here are just a few examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S," the department added. According to the department’s thread, an Argentinian national, a South African national, a Mexican national, a Brazilian national, a German national and a Paraguayan national all had their visas revoked over comments about Kirk’s assassination. In a post on X, the State Department said the Argentine national said in an online post that Kirk "devoted his entire life spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric" and deserves to burn in hell. In a separate post, the department claimed the South African national had "mocked Americans grieving the loss of Kirk" by saying in a post online that "they’re hurt that the racist rally ended in attempted martyrdom" and alleging "he was used to astroturf a movement of white nationalist trailer trash.” "@POTUS and @SecRubio will defend our borders, our culture, and our citizens by enforcing our immigration laws," the State Department said in their X thread. "Aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed.” Following Kirk’s death, debates have arisen regarding his legacy, rhetoric, and the limits of free speech. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had his show briefly suspended by ABC over comments he made about Kirk’s assassination, drawing heavy backlash from Democrats. On Tuesday, President Trump awarded the U.S.’s highest civilian honor posthumously to Kirk, calling him a "martyr for truth and for freedom.” The president and numerous administration officials were in the Rose Garden to posthumously give the Presidential of Freedom to Kirk, who was killed in September amid an event at Utah Valley University. The New York Post [10/14/2025 9:38 PM, Louis Casiano, 42219K] reports that the Argentinian declared that Kirk “devoted his entire life to spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric.” The South African citizen poked fun at Americans who were genuinely grieving Kirk, writing that “they’re hurt that the racist rally ended in attempted martyrdom” and that “he was used to astroturf a movement of white nationalist trailer trash.” The Mexican national wrote that Kirk “died being a racist, he died being a misogynist” and that “there are people who deserve to die. There are people who would make the world better off dead.” The German said that “when fascists die, democrats don’t complain.” A Brazilian visa holder added that “Charlie Kirk was the reason for a Nazi rally where they marched in homage to him” and that the conservative pundit “DIED TOO LATE.” A Paraguayan national said that “Charlie Kirk was a son of a b—h and he died by his own rules.” The State Department shared each example on X and simply wrote “Visa revoked” as if stamping their documentation. Kirk, the cofounder of Turning Point USA, was shot dead during a Sept. 10 speaking event at Utah Valley University. His alleged killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was charged with aggravated murder and could face the death penalty in Utah. The Trump administration is eliminating any and all blind spots while ensuring that the US is not welcoming visitors “who glorify violence and hatred,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said last month. “I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” he wrote on X. Other home-grown haters ranged from axed MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd to swaths of pilots, health care workers, and even teachers.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [10/14/2025 7:00 PM, Jasper Ward, 36480K]
AP [10/14/2025 5:40 PM, Matthew Lee, 31753K]
CNN [10/14/2025 8:04 PM, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, 18595K]
FOX News [10/14/2025 7:03 PM, Louis Casiano, 40621K]
Washington Examiner [10/14/2025 6:19 PM, Timothy Nerozzi and Anna Giaritelli, 1394K]

Federalist [10/14/2025 2:31 PM, Breccan F. Thies, 785K] reports that four states suing the Trump administration to defend the citizenship of illegal aliens and a nonsense definition of "birthright citizenship" do no have any evidence to prove the "harm" they claim in the lawsuit, according to records obtained by America First Legal (AFL). On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," which recognizes the only sane understanding of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause: that it does not apply to the entire globe’s worth of people just because they happen to be born on American soil. Put simply, a child born to aliens within the United States does not automatically become a citizen of the United States. According to the states’ lawsuit, Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon are concerned that if anchor babies’ citizenships are no longer recognized, they will be "harmed" by the loss of "federal funding or reimbursements to programs that the Plaintiff States administer, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), foster care and adoption assistance programs, and programs to facilitate streamlined issuances of SSNs [Social Security Numbers] to eligible babies — among others." In other words, they are concerned that they will lose federal funding to give tax dollars meant for American citizens to individuals who should never have been considered citizens in the first place, and who must be returned to their noncitizen status. AFL filed public records requests with the plaintiff states to see if they had the data or records to prove their own claims. Not one did.

Reuters [10/14/2025 10:58 AM, Daniel Wiessner, 36480K] reports the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a challenge to a rule adopted during Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration allowing the spouses of people with H-1B visas for highly-skilled jobs to work in the United States. The justices denied a petition by Save Jobs USA, which represents American tech workers who it says were displaced by foreign labor, to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said the Department of Homeland Security had the power to adopt the rule in 2015. Following its usual practice, the court did not explain its decision. The group had argued that while DHS has the authority to admit the dependents of H-1B holders into the United States and issue them visas known as H-4s, federal immigration law does not allow them to work — and compete with Americans for jobs — while they are in the country. DHS and lawyers for Save Jobs USA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Blaze [10/14/2025 1:15 PM, Cooper Williamson, 1442K] reports that last week, a social media post went viral showing that a remarkable number of H-1B visa holders - brought to the U.S. ostensibly because American citizens already living here do not have the necessary skill sets in certain American industries - listed residential addresses as their "place of work," according to government data. Upon further investigation, Blaze News discovered that not only were these claims true, but the legality of this loophole is strained, to say the least. In a recent Blaze News column, Matt O’Brien, the deputy executive director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, argued that the H-1B program, and with it the de facto "work from home" proviso, has always benefited corporations and foreigners at the expense of American workers. But are H-1B visa holders legally allowed to work from home? What is the legal basis? Experts have raised concerns that government agencies likely do not have the authority to permit foreign nationals on nonimmigrant visas to work remotely. "There are numerous provisions throughout the H-1B statutes requiring employers to specifically identify all worksites where alien employees will be performing labor. These provisions were intended to ensure effective worksite enforcement, to protect American workers from unlawful competition, as well as to protect foreign workers from exploitation," O’Brien explained. Nevertheless, upon review of the laws surrounding H-1B regulations, Blaze News discovered that there are no mentions of "remote work" that would explicitly permit or forbid H-1B holders to work from home.

The Hill [10/14/2025 1:10 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports that the Labor Department warned that the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts could cause an uptick in food prices amid a decrease in labor and an increase in demand for fresh produce. The department wrote in an interim rule released on the Federal Register earlier this month that the decline in immigrant labor will "exacerbate [an] already pressing mismatch in the agricultural labor market and deprive growers of a relatively cheaper labor supply on which they have become economically reliant." "Despite rising wages, there is no indication that unemployed or marginally attached U.S. workers are entering the agricultural labor force in meaningful numbers," it adds. "Without swift action, agricultural employers will be unable to maintain operations, and the nation’s food supply will be at risk." The interim rule, which was first reported on by The American Prospect, suggests that unless the Labor Department "acts immediately to provide a source of stable and lawful labor, this threat will grow." The department, in its Oct. 2 rule, proposed that pay be lowered for seasonal agricultural workers who hold H-2A visas. Through the visa, agriculture workers are sponsored for residency by growers for a year, but lack bargaining rights and must accept a minimum wage set by federal guidance that doesn’t create an "adverse effect" on U.S. workers. Almost 1 in 5 agricultural workers are on an H-2A visa, which is a nearly tenfold increase from 20 years ago, according to American Prospect.

NPR [10/15/2025 5:00 AM, Sequoia Carrillo, 34837K] reports Maria Cristina Tomimbang has taught middle school math for 22 years — 18 years in the Philippines and four years in Montana. "It’s really such a blessing," she says of her job in the Hardin Public Schools. "I love the community." Hardin, a town of 4,000 about an hour east of Billings and just off the Crow Indian Reservation, is a place that has had trouble attracting teachers. "We don’t have candidates," says Tobin Novasio, the district’s superintendent. Earlier in his career, he says that if he posted an elementary teacher position, at least 20 people would apply. Now, "if we get two, we’re ecstatic." Hardin, like many rural districts, relies on international teachers to fill out its staff. Out of 150 teachers in the district, about 30 are in the U.S. on teaching visas. Many are on short-term J1 visas, with hopes to one day graduate to the longer-term H-1B visa. Now, things are about to get even tougher — for the district and for teachers like Tomimbang. Last month, President Trump unveiled a plan that requires employers pay a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas. In his announcement, Trump specifically called out high-paying tech jobs that he said were filled by too many foreign workers. However, the impact on schools and educators will be significant. According to data from the Department of Homeland Security, more than 20,000 educators are in the country on H-1B visas — the third most common occupation group for the program. "I don’t have a teacher in my district that makes $100,000 a year," Novasio says. For school districts, "to pay that fee on top of a salary is just gonna kill the H-1B for education." The change is a blow to some districts’ long-term strategy to keep teachers in classrooms.

Washington Post [10/14/2025 9:00 AM, Patricia Escarcega, 24149K] reports in January, as a wall of smoke descended onto the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, food truck owner Rodolfo Barrientos evacuated. In mere hours, the Palisades Fire, which raged for 24 days, decimated whole blocks of the community. For more than a decade, Barrientos’s taco truck, Gracias Señor, had succeeded in bridging the neighborhood’s two disparate yet intersecting populations: the predominantly White locals and the largely Latino immigrant workers who commuted for service work. But in the fire, many longtime customers lost the homes or jobs that had tied them to the Palisades, and they scattered across the city. Barrientos was forced to relocate the truck to nearby Brentwood, but business has been slow. Lately, Barrientos has had to cope with an even more personal threat: the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, which has hit Los Angeles especially hard. Barrientos is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly known as DACA. When it was introduced in 2012, DACA was a lifeline to those who met its strict eligibility criteria: Applicants had to have arrived in the U.S. as children, lived in the States continuously since 2007, been under the age of 31 at the time, maintained a clean criminal record, pursued education or military service, and passed all background checks. In the years since, the program has wound through a maze of legal battles, with its protections challenged again and again. Last month, as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Texas and eight other states, Justice Department attorneys put forth a proposal that would allow the processing of new and renewal DACA applications to resume across the country. (DACA residents in Texas, where the case is being heard, would not be eligible for work permits under the proposal.) Conflicting court rulings have allowed renewals while blocking new applications, leaving DACA in a fragile, contested state — and its more than 500,000 recipients navigating a landscape of deep uncertainty and shifting political winds. Many worry these winds are now shifting against them.

Reuters [10/14/2025 11:55 AM, Diego Oré, Emily Green, and Stephen Eisenhammer, 45746K] reports the U.S. government has revoked the visas of at least 50 politicians and government officials in Mexico amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug cartels and their suspected political allies, two Mexican officials told Reuters. A handful of these cases have been publicized, but Reuters reporting shows the visa cancellations are far more widespread than previously reported. According to three former U.S. ambassadors, previous administrations have revoked visas in this way - but not to the same degree, which they said was indicative of President Donald Trump’s willingness to use the diplomatic tool to achieve policy goals. "The Trump administration is finding new ways to exert more pressure on Mexico," said Tony Wayne, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015. The move has sent quiet shockwaves through Mexico’s political elite, who regularly travel to the U.S. and require a visa to do so. It also marks a significant broadening of U.S. anti-narcotics action, with the Trump administration targeting active politicians usually seen as too diplomatically sensitive. One of the sources, a senior Mexican politician, said more than 50 politicians from the ruling Morena party have had their visas revoked, as well as dozens of officials from other political parties. The sources requested anonymity to speak on a sensitive topic. Reuters was unable to ascertain the names of the Mexican officials whose visas have been revoked. So far, only four have publicly confirmed they lost their visas, including Baja California state Governor Marina del Pilar Avila, who has categorically denied any links to organized crime.

NewsNation [10/14/2025 10:34 PM, Salvador Rivera, 8017K] reports two Border Patrol agents who wanted to remain anonymous tell Border Report they are not worried about their lack of pay during the government shutdown, saying "they’ll eventually get their money.” They did admit being concerned about paying for "travel soccer, cars and other monthly bills" if the budget impasse in Washington goes on much longer, it’s now entering its third week. The agents are part of the 60,000 estimated Customs and Border Patrol personnel who remain on the job protecting the country’s borders and ports of entry. Those who are deemed as essential workers such as air traffic controllers, law enforcement and the military are kept on but without pay. Thousands of other federal employees have been furloughed for the time being. Over the weekend, President Trump said his administration would do everything possible to ensure members of the military get paid. According to CNN, the Pentagon is trying to move billions from funds approved by Congress for research to pay troops this week in a move that could signal the shutdown could extend for quite some time. So far, there has been no mention of CBP officers and agents receiving their compensation before the government budget impasse ends. "Maybe they should offer interest on our money," one Border Patrol agent jokingly discussed what it’s like working but not getting paid. "The last time we had one was about six years ago, it went on forever, but we survived.” In 2019, the government shut down for 34 days during President Trump’s first administration. According to laws already in place, Social Security and Medicare benefits are still issued and the U.S. Treasury continues to make payments on the national debt. U.S. courts remain in operation temporarily using fees already collected.

FOX News [10/14/2025 6:02 PM, Greg Wehner, 40621K] reports a drug bust earlier this month at the Los Indios International Bridge near Brownsville, Texas, seized more than $1.3 million in methamphetamine and black tar heroin from reaching U.S. streets, federal officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers assigned to the port of entry seized the drugs on Oct. 6, when a 37-year-old Mexican man attempted to enter the U.S. in a 2001 Chevrolet. After going through a primary inspection, officers referred the vehicle to secondary inspection for a closer look. With help from a drug-sniffing dog and X-ray technology, CBP officers discovered packages hidden inside the car. Officers removed the packages and found they contained about 67 pounds of methamphetamine and 42.5 pounds of black tar heroin — with a combined estimated street value of more than $1.3 million, officials said. Once the officers seized the drugs, they seized the vehicle and turned the driver, a Mexican national, over to agents with Homeland Security Investigations who initiated a criminal investigation.

The New York Times [10/14/2025 2:25 PM, Christine Chung, 135475K] reports that more than a dozen airports across the country are refusing to display a video of Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and any travel disruptions that may result from it. Representatives for the airports said that the video was overly partisan. “It is T.S.A.’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” Ms. Noem said in the roughly 30-second video. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this many of our operations are impacted and most of our T.S.A. employees are working without pay.” The list of airports includes the major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, as well as major airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., as well as several other regional airports. While some airports cited internal or municipal policies that barred politically partisan messaging for preventing them from showing the video, others pointed to state and federal law. Kara Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Port of Portland in Oregon, said in a statement that the video violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law intended to maintain a nonpartisan federal work force and to limit the political activities of federal employees. Ms. Hansen said the Transportation Security Administration asked Port of Portland to show the video on Thursday. In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security, repeated Ms. Noem’s video message, adding that it was “unfortunate our work force has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship.” “Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” she added. The AP [10/14/2025 7:44 PM, Adriana Gomez Licon and Rio Yamat, 4K] reports that airports in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle and more say the video’s political content goes against their policies or regulations prohibiting political messaging in their facilities. Various government agencies, in emails to workers and on websites, have adopted language that blames Democrats for the shutdown. Some experts argue it could be in violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees. The shutdown has disrupted routine operations at some airports, leading to flight delays. Democrats say any deal to reopen the government has to address their health care demands, and Republicans say they won’t negotiate until they agree to fund the government. Some medical insurance premiums would double if Congress fails to renew the subsidy payments that expire Dec. 31. ABC News [10/14/2025 10:07 PM, Ayesha Ali, 30493K] reports that Democrats maintain Republicans shoulder the responsibility for the shutdown, arguing they need to negotiate over health care premiums as part of an effort to come to agreement on federal spending. Among the airports that have declined to show the DHS video are LaGuardia, Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy, Charlotte Douglas International, Seattle-Tacoma, San Francisco, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago O’ Hare, Phoenix International and Colorado Springs. "The Port Authority’s longstanding policies prevent airing of politically partisan messages at our facilities, so airports are not airing the video on airport-controlled screens," The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates New York City’s three major airports, said in a statement. In response to a request for comment about some airports declining to play the video, DHS provided a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin: "It is TSA’s top priority to ensure that travelers have the most safe, pleasant and efficient airport experience possible. However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, most of our TSA employees are working without pay. While this creates challenges for our people, our security operations remain largely unimpacted at this time. It’s unfortunate our workforce has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government.” CBS News [10/14/2025 4:25 PM, Nicole Brown Chau, 39474K] reports that in the DHS video, Secretary Kristi Noem tells travelers, "Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government and because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay. We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel and our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government." The video began airing at airports on Thursday, a DHS spokesperson said. But multiple airports say they are not playing it because the partisan message goes against their policies, as well as state or federal regulations. USA Today [10/14/2025 2:36 PM, Nathan Diller, 67103K] reports t Kara Hansen, a spokesperson for the Port of Portland, said they received a request from TSA to play the video, but "we did not consent to playing the video in its current form, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging." "Additionally, Oregon law states no public employee can promote or oppose any political committee, party, or affiliation," the email continued. "We believe consenting to playing this video on Port assets would violate Oregon law." The Indianapolis International Airport and the Des Moines International Airport will not show the video, either, representatives told the USA TODAY Network. Politico [10/14/2025 6:01 PM, Faith Wardwell and Pavan Acharya, 13586K] reports that in a statement to POLITICO last week, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Noem’s video message was “rolling out in airports across the country” and echoed the clip’s criticism of Democrats. The spokesperson declined to comment on whether DHS possessed the legal authority to compel airports to display the video. Officials from airports in major markets like Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia, along with Phoenix, Seattle and Salt Lake City said they wouldn’t air the video due to city, state or airport policies prohibiting “political” content displayed in airport facilities. “The City of Philadelphia Department of Aviation, owner and operator of Philadelphia International Airport, does not accept or display materials that are political in nature in its facilities,” Philadelphia International Public Affairs Manager Heather Redfern said in an email. “The Port of Seattle will not play the video on its screens at SEA Airport due to the political nature of the content,” a Port of Seattle spokesperson said in a statement. “We continue to urge bipartisan efforts to end the government shutdown and are working to find ways to support federal employees working without pay at SEA during the shutdown.”

Reported similarly:
New York Post [10/14/2025 8:00 AM, Victor Nava, 147K]
Los Angeles Times [10/14/2025 2:32 PM, Adriana Gomez Licon, 14862K]
NPR [10/14/2025 4:48 PM, Jaclyn Diaz, 28013K] Audio: HERE
CBS News [10/14/2025 4:01 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE
ABC News [10/14/2025 3:51 PM, Adriana Gomez Licon, 30493K]
Axios [10/14/2025 10:40 AM, Avery Lotz, 12972K]
Axios [10/14/2025 12:40 PM, Isaac Avilucea and Avery Lotz, 12972K]
CBS News [10/14/2025 1:00 PM, Dan Raby, 39474K
(B) CBS 58 News at Noon [10/14/2025 1:35 PM, Staff]
Daily Caller [10/14/2025 10:41 AM, John Loftus, 835K]
Daily Wire [10/14/2025 6:30 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K]
CBS Chicago [10/14/2025 2:07 PM, Todd Feurer, 39474K]
San Francisco Chronicle [10/14/2025 12:41 PM, Aidin Vaziri, 4722K]

CNN [10/14/2025 6:47 PM, Alexandra Skores, 606K] reports travelers going through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at Detroit Metro Airport will come face-to-face with a video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the shutdown of the federal government. The remarkable video that injects divisive politics into the mundane process of airport security has sparked controversy as many airports refuse to show it. The video raises questions about whether it can be legally played, if the Department of Homeland Security can require airports to show it, and what happens if airports refuse. Checkpoints often include videos featuring government officials welcoming travelers and explanations of procedures, but they usually do not contain political messages. CNN reached out to over 50 airports across the country varying in size; many refused to display the video on airport-owned monitors or noted they didn’t have the capabilities to show it to passengers. Some monitors at checkpoints are owned and controlled by the airports, while others belong to the TSA. As of Tuesday afternoon, Detroit Metro Airport and Bismarck Airport in North Dakota confirmed to CNN the video was playing on monitors in space controlled by the TSA. At Albany International Airport in New York, the footage was displayed on TSA-owned monitors without prior notice to the airport authority, a spokesperson said. It was taken down "in keeping with longstanding policies of not displaying political messaging or content of any kind.” Federal employees tend to distance themselves from politically charged messaging like what is seen in Noem’s video, said Keith Jeffries, vice president of K2 Security Screening Group and a former TSA federal security director at Los Angeles International Airport. In the video, which was released last week and first obtained by Fox News, Noem starts by discussing travel, but the message quickly becomes political. "It is TSA’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe," the video begins. "However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.” Jeffries said it’s just not something these screeners are used to seeing at work. "TSA employees that aren’t working (directly) for DHS may be like, ‘Well, I can say this, my boss said it,’" he told CNN. Others who don’t agree may feel discouraged in the workplace over the messaging, especially considering they are not currently being paid. The video also "completely runs afoul of the Hatch Act," Berry said, noting the 1939 law which prohibits government employees from taking part in certain political activates to ensure programs are administered in a non-partisan fashion. Typically, a Hatch Act violation would be brought to the Office of Special Counsel, according to Berry, which would conduct an investigation. That investigation would then be forwarded to the president for a decision on what happens next. Berry said it is unlikely a violation would result in any consequences, given President Donald Trump would be the one to decide.

New York Post [10/14/2025 4:05 PM, Ryan King, 42219K] reports the ongoing partial government shutdown is at risk of upending holiday travel plans for Thanksgiving if it rages on for a few more weeks, House GOP leaders ominously warned Tuesday. Since Oct. 1, the government has been partially shut down, which means that air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are not getting paid. Because they are deemed essential workers, they are required to show up to work — though there are indications that hundreds have been calling in sick. Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to be the busiest travel seasons of the year. Amid the shutdown, airports like Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Hollywood Burbank have faced shortages, snarling travel. Just under 60,000 flights in the US were delayed on Sunday, according to FlightAware.

Reuters [10/14/2025 6:25 PM, David Shepardson and Doyinsola Oladipo, 36480K] reports more than 13,000 U.S. air traffic controllers face rising stress and financial insecurity after Tuesday’s disbursement of what will be their last paycheck during the government shutdown, posing potential risks for air travel, the head of an employee union said. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said last week that staffing issues among air traffic controllers were to blame for 53% of flight delays since the shutdown, now in its 14th day, compared with 5% in normal times. And as the political stalemate over government funding drags on, the potential toll on air traffic could worsen, said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "(The shutdown) introduces a whole new risk in the air traffic control system, when their focus is now moved from the safety and moving 45,000 planes, 3 million passengers, tons of cargo a day into, ‘Do I have to get another job? Do I have to start driving Uber on the side?’" he said in an interview at Reagan Washington National Airport Tuesday. Controllers, working in one of the government’s most high-stress professions with responsibility for the smooth and safe flow of air travel, also fear getting caught in the middle as both political parties point fingers at each other over the budget impasse. "We’re used as the political pawn during the process," Daniels said. More than 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers are also working without pay.

Axios [10/14/2025 11:16 AM, Ashley Mahoney, 12972K] reports Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) is one of several U.S. airports refusing to show a video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming the government shutdown and resulting travel delays on congressional Democrats. Airing a partisan video conflicts with North Carolina municipal law and CLT’s "policy for digital content," according to a statement from Charlotte Douglas International Airport provided to Axios. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not own any of the screens at CLT’s checkpoints, according to a CLT spokesperson. "The limited digital screens owned by CLT are designated for static content that supports wayfinding, provides essential travel information and promotes CLT’s revenue-generating services," according to CLT’s statement. Airports nationwide — including Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and Las Vegas — are citing concern that the video violates the Hatch Act — a 1939 law designed to keep federal programs free of partisan political activity. Airports do regularly display videos from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, though those typically focus on safety or travel procedures, not partisan messaging, The Washington Post reports.

NewsNation [10/14/2025 11:32 AM, Julian Crews, 8017K] reports bomb technicians responded to Chicago’s Midway International Airport on Monday following reports of a suspicious device with an anti-United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) message. Witnesses told NewsNation local affiliate WGN that the package read, "FOR ICE FROM FC." The FBI and Chicago police have not expanded upon what the short phrase could mean. The Chicago police’s bomb unit rendered the suspicious package, reported at 60th & Kilpatrick, safe just after 8:40 a.m. Monday. Patrol officers on the scene alerted residents before eliminating the suspicious package. The situation unfolded about 300 yards from Midway Airport’s main terminal, according to law enforcement officials. WGN reached out to CPD News Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security for more information about the mysterious message.

Reuters [10/14/2025 11:52 AM, Nate Raymond, 36480K] reports a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration had violated his previous court order by implementing a nearly identical policy that again made state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement a condition for receiving grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, wrote that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had done precisely what his Sept. 24 ruling forbade when it imposed new immigration-related conditions that states must accept before they can obtain emergency preparedness grants from FEMA. The judge in his earlier ruling had struck down conditions the department originally imposed on grant awards that 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia argued were designed to coerce them into adhering to the Republican president’s hardline immigration crackdown. After Smith ruled, the administration issued new grant award documents to the states with nearly identical immigration-enforcement conditions, but with a clause saying they would only become effective if Smith’s ruling was stayed or overturned. Smith said the "fig leaf conditional nature of the requirement makes little difference," as the administration was again unlawfully forcing the states to agree to assist in federal immigration enforcement or else forgo millions of dollars in funding. "Defendants’ new condition is not a good faith effort to comply with the order; it is a ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make at the risk of losing critical disaster and other funding already appropriated by Congress.

Roll Call [10/14/2025 3:46 PM, Chris Johnson, 548K] reports a federal judge rebuked the Trump administration Tuesday for "a ham-handed attempt to bully the states" that also defied his court order against conditioning eligibility for federal funds on cooperation with immigration enforcement. Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, an appointee of George W. Bush, last month issued an order to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from requiring those conditions on state and local recipients of Federal Emergency Management Agency grants. Smith, in an order Tuesday, said DHS since then has inserted those conditions on award letters along with statements that the conditions will become immediately effective if Smith’s order is lifted or wiped out on an appeal. Smith’s latest order bars FEMA from enforcing the contested conditions and "any materially similar term requiring cooperation with federal immigration enforcement." Additionally, the order requires states to "amend all award documents" within seven days to remove all mention of compliance with immigration law from award letters to localities.

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Bloomberg Law [10/14/2025 11:35 AM, Eric Heisig, 803K]

CBS Chicago [10/14/2025 12:33 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE reports the storm brought torrential rain, powerful winds and flooding from the Carolinas to New England.

AP [10/14/2025 1:05 PM, Michael Casey, 31753K] reports that a federal judge in Rhode Island on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of trying to "bully" states into accepting conditions that require them to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get disaster funding after he ruled earlier that those actions were unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge William Smith, who was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, issued a summary judgment last month ruling that the Department of Homeland Security couldn’t impose the conditions. Despite the September ruling, a coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general argued the agency still attached the conditions to the grants along with language suggesting they would apply if the case was "stayed, vacated, or extinguished." Smith ordered Homeland Security to permanently stop enforcing those conditions against plaintiff states. The judge also said the agency must amend documents to states within seven days to remove language related to complying with federal immigration law as well as the conditional language related to the ruling being stayed or vacated. Smith accused the agency of doing exactly what his order forbids, adding that the "fig leaf conditional nature of the requirement makes little difference." "Defendants’ new condition is not a good faith effort to comply with the order," Smith wrote. "It is a ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make at the risk of losing critical disaster and other funding already appropriated by Congress."

CBS Philadelphia [10/14/2025 10:47 AM, Brandon Goldner, 39474K] reports Strathmere’s beach is "essentially gone" following this weekend’s nor’easter, according to an Upper Township, New Jersey, administrator. A section of Neptune Road remained shut down Tuesday morning after the nor’easter breached Strathmere’s northernmost dunes, which caused ocean water to flood the road and cover it in sand, debris and dune fencing. While no one was injured and there was minimal damage to nearby homes, local leaders fear a future storm system could lead to major flooding. A township administrator said crews will continue to survey the damaged dunes, which stretch from Seaview Avenue to Williams Avenue. Those living at or visiting the Jersey Shore on Sunday and Monday felt the impacts of the coastal storm system the hardest. The storm pounded the shore, causing coastal flooding that filled the streets with inches of water and brought heavy winds, which caused power outages.

CBS News [10/14/2025 11:38 AM, Julia Falcon, 39474K] reports a group of Texas lawmakers has been appointed to investigative committees examining what went wrong — and what could have been prevented — during the deadly floods that hit Central Texas on July 4, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced Monday. The committees, created by Senate Resolution 2 and House Resolution 177 during the 89th Legislature, will examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the deadly flooding, Patrick said. He and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows are also a part of the committees. The Senate committee includes Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, chair; Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, vice chair; Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Tyler; Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham; and Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio. At least nine girls from North Texas were among the victims of the deadly July 4 flooding. At Camp Mystic, 27 campers and counselors died in what the camp and surviving campers described as "catastrophic flooding.” "The families who lost their precious daughters deserve answers, as do all Texans, on exactly what happened on July 4th," Patrick said. "Camp Mystic has not spoken publicly on the record as to what happened that morning. They will be invited to testify, as will others involved in this flooding event.” Less than three months after the devastating and deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country, Camp Mystic announced plans to reopen its Cypress Lake location, which is separate from the part of the camp that flooded in July. In an email sent to the families of the victims and obtained by the Associated Press, the camp said when it reopens, its planning and procedures will follow the "requirements of the camp safety legislation you bravely championed.”

New York Post [10/14/2025 12:22 PM, Julian Atienza and Emilee Speck, 42219K] reports that record-setting flooding in western Alaska from the remnants of Typhoon Halong has left at least one person dead after the storm slammed villages and damaged key roads and regional airports along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region over the weekend. Alaska state troopers announced late Monday that a woman had been found dead in the small coastal village of Kwigillingok. Fifty-one people and two dogs were rescued from the village and the village of Kipnuk. Officials said everyone has now been accounted for. The powerful coastal storm moved into the Bering Sea on Sunday, packing hurricane-force wind gusts, big waves, and major coastal flooding for the Kuskokwim Delta and communities south of the Bering Strait. However, storm surge and heavy rain have been ongoing since last week from another storm system, creating a dire situation. The powerful flooding has displaced more than 1,400 people and prompted search and rescue operations by state and federal officials. Video from the city of Bethel showed powerful flooding washing away boats and damaging infrastructure over the weekend. Photos shared by Alaska’s Emergency Management showed dozens of homes surrounded by flooding. According to the state’s Division of Homeland Security, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center reported an overwhelming number of calls for non-critical evacuations on Monday, and some 1,400 people are currently being housed across 12 shelters. Additional first responders and the Alaska National Guard are being deployed to the region. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [10/15/2025 1:51 AM, Becky Bohrer, Cedar Attanasio and Gene Johnson, 30493K] reports more rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaskan coast where two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong and officials were scrambling to find shelter for more than 1,500 people driven from their homes. The weekend storm brought high winds and surf that battered the low-lying Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the southwestern part of the state, nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Anchorage. At least one person was killed and two were missing. The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea. Hundreds were staying in school shelters, including one with no working toilets, officials said. The weather system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier. Across the region, more than 1,500 people were displaced. Dozens were flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel, a community of 6,000 people, and officials were considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage. The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380. They are off the state’s main road system and reachable this time of year only by water or by air. “It’s catastrophic in Kipnuk. Let’s not paint any other picture,” Mark Roberts, incident commander with the state emergency management division, told a news conference Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community, but it is as bad as you can think.” Among those awaiting evacuation to Bethel on Tuesday was Brea Paul, of Kipnuk, who said in a text message that she had seen about 20 homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night. “Some houses would blink their phone lights at us like they were asking for help but we couldn’t even do anything,” she wrote. The following morning, she recorded video of a house submerged nearly to its roofline as it floated past her home. Paul and her neighbors had a long meeting in the local school gym on Monday night. They sang songs as they tried to figure out what to do next, she said. Paul wasn’t sure where she would go. “It’s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our community members not knowing when we’d get to see each other,” she said. About 30 miles (48 kilometers) away in Kwigillingok, one woman was found dead and authorities on Monday night called off the search for two men whose home floated away. The school was the only facility in town with full power, but it had no working toilet and 400 people stayed there Monday night. Workers were trying to fix the bathrooms; a situation report from the state emergency operations center on Tuesday noted that portable toilets, or “honey buckets,” were being used. A preliminary assessment showed every home in the village was damaged by the storm, with about three dozen having drifted from their foundations, the emergency management office said. Power systems flooded in Napakiak, and severe erosion was reported in Toksook Bay. In Nightmute, officials said fuel drums were reported floating in the community, and there was a scent of fuel in the air and a sheen on the water. The National Guard was activated to help with the emergency response, and crews were trying to take advantage of any breaks in the weather to fly in food, water, generators and communication equipment. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [10/14/2025 11:08 PM, Becky Bohrer, Cedar Attanasio and Gene Johnson, 31753K] reports officials in Alaska rushed Tuesday to evacuate and find housing for people from tiny coastal villages devastated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. But the remote location and severe damage are limiting their options as they race against other impending storms and the onset of winter. High winds and surging waters battered low-lying, isolated Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwest Alaska, nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Anchorage, over the weekend. The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea in high water, three people were missing or dead, and hundreds of people were staying in school shelters — including one with no working toilets, officials said. The system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier. Across the region, more than 1,500 people were displaced. Dozens had been flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel, a community of 6,000 people, and officials are considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage as they run out of room there. Fuel storage depots intended to support communities in the region had apparently been damaged, threatening pollution that could harm the fish and game the Alaska Native residents rely on for subsistence. Some people in the area may have lost freezers full of food such as salmon and moose intended to get them through the winter. The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380. They are off the state’s main road system and reachable this time of year only by water or by air. “It’s catastrophic in Kipnuk. Let’s not paint any other picture,” Mark Roberts, incident commander with the state emergency management division, told a news conference Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community, but it is as bad as you can think.” Among those awaiting evacuation to Bethel on Tuesday was Brea Paul, of Kipnuk, who said in a text message that she had seen about 20 homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night. “Some houses would blink their phone lights at us like they were asking for help but we couldn’t even do anything,” she wrote. The following morning, she recorded video of a house submerged nearly to its roofline as it floated past her home. Paul and her neighbors had a long meeting in the local schoolhouse gym on Monday night, singing songs of praises as they tried to figure out what to do next, she said. Neither she nor most everyone else knows where they will end up. “It’s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our community members not knowing when we’d get to see each other,” she said. One woman was found dead in Kwigillingok, and authorities on Monday night called off the search for two men after their home floated away. In Kwigillingok, the school was the only facility with full power, but it had no working toilet, and 400 people stayed there Monday night. Workers were trying to fix the bathrooms; a situation report from the state emergency operations center on Tuesday noted that “honey buckets are being used.”

New York Times [10/14/2025 5:57 PM, Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman, 135475K] reports five months before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, tearing many houses off their foundations, the Trump administration canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from such extreme flooding. The grant from the Environmental Protection Agency was designed to help stabilize the riverbank on which Kipnuk is built, protecting it from the twin threats of erosion and flooding. But in May, the E.P.A. revoked the grant, which was issued at the end of the Biden administration, saying it was “no longer consistent” with the agency’s priorities. It is unclear whether the work funded by the grant would have prevented the tragedy on Sunday, which left one person dead and two missing in the neighboring village of Kwigillingok. But the disaster laid bare the area’s vulnerability to flooding and the consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts to environmental programs. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said the flooding underscored the need for funding for underserved communities in the state.

CNN [10/14/2025 2:49 PM, Andrew Freedman, 606K] reports that the forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’s cuts. There is a gaping hole in weather balloon coverage in western Alaska — a critical shortage bedeviling US forecasts and the National Weather Service since layoffs hit the agency as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s push to shrink the federal government back in February. Weather balloons, which are typically launched twice a day, provide crucial information on wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity and other measurements. Balloon data is fed directly into the sophisticated computer models used to predict the weather. However, there were few, if any, balloons to take measurements of what the weather was doing as the remains of Typhoon Halong approached Alaska late last week. Such data could have helped the models more accurately predict the storm’s path and intensity, as initial model projections had the forecasts suggesting the worst conditions would strike farther to the south and west than they did. Models like the NWS’ Global Forecast System (GFS) consistently showed a stronger storm to the northwest of where it eventually struck. The communities that ended up seeing the worst storm surge flooding were not in the original forecasts. While NWS forecasters in Alaska issued many warnings for the area that ended up bearing the brunt of the storm, they did so without the aid of accurate model projections made days in advance.

ABC 9 Cedar Rapids [10/14/2025 4:40 PM, Staff] reports a Cedar Falls man was sentenced for threatening government officials while illegally possessing firearms, police say. In March, 24-year-old Cade Corso pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm while subject to an order of protection. He was charged with Possession and Control of a Firearm Prohibited in February. According to a criminal complaint, a U.S. Secret Service agent contacted Cedar Falls Police, reporting that Corso had made threats toward the current U.S. government. Corso’s mother told investigators that her son was in possession of several firearms at their home on Zicron Lane, including a handgun and an inoperable AR-15. Corso was found to have an active protection order against him out of Johnson County that bans Carso from possessing guns or ammunition until November 5, 2029. Cedar Falls Police say Corso isn’t allowed to possess firearms because of previous arrests for threatening to kill people. In February, police conducted a search warrant at his home. Officers found a loaded handgun in his waistband, along with two fully loaded magazines in the pocket of his sweatpants. The AR-15 was also found in Corso’s bedroom. Corso was sentenced to two years in prison and a three-year term of supervised release following imprisonment.

Federal News Network [10/14/2025 5:46 PM, Justin Doubleday, 986K] reports Coast Guard service members will receive their mid-month paychecks amid the government shutdown, as the Trump administration prioritizes funding salaries for members of the military. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Coast Guard service members would receive pay in a Monday evening post on X. The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, but falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Noem didn’t say exactly how DHS would shift funds to finance Coast Guard paychecks, only that DHS had found an "innovative solution." She also pointed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed over the summer. "Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the One Big Beautiful Bill, the brave men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week as they continue to carry out their critical homeland security and military missions," Noem wrote. The law does appropriate $25 billion for Coast Guard shipbuilding and modernization projects. But tapping into that funding or other sources to finance personnel salaries would require DHS to reprogram or transfer funds. DHS did not answer questions about how it was moving funds to finance Coast Guard paychecks.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [10/14/2025 9:22 AM, Max Rego, 12595K]

NewsMax [10/14/2025 12:40 PM, Staff, 4109K] reports that U.S. Coast Guard members will get paid this week, even as the government remains shuttered, leveraging a bold funding workaround weeks in the making, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday. "While Democrats have played politics with military pay to fight for illegal aliens, the U.S. Coast Guard has been defending our maritime borders, stopping the flow of deadly narcotics and illegal immigration into our country, and countering America’s adversaries around the world," Noem said in a statement. "President Trump did not want any of our military to go without pay as a result of Democrats’ political theater, and we at DHS worked out an innovative solution to make sure that didn’t happen," she explained. "Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the ‘one big beautiful bill,’ the brave men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week as they continue to carry out their critical homeland security and military missions." Her message came right on the heels of President Trump’s Saturday announcement: "I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th," he posted on Truth Social. He added, "I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military… HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown.” Trump’s move triggered reports that the Pentagon will repurpose some $8 billion in unused research and development funds to cover military salaries. But Noem’s announcement makes clear that, despite being outside the War Department, the Coast Guard too is shielded from pay disruption.

ABC News [10/15/2025 2:52 AM, Jon Haworth, 30493K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard says that it has seized over 50 tons of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific Ocean since launching Operation Pacific Viper in early August, averaging nearly a ton daily. In total, 86 people suspected of narco-trafficking have been arrested as a result of 34 interdictions since early August, according to a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday. "Through Operation Pacific Viper, the Coast Guard is accelerating counter-drug operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, where significant transport of illicit narcotics continues from Central and South America," officials said. The U.S. Coast Guard said that it has surged their assets in the region in the past two months in order to "interdict, seize and disrupt transshipments of cocaine and other bulk illicit drugs.” Operation Pacific Viper’s ultimate goal is to counter narco-terrorism seeking to produce and traffic illicit drugs into the United States. "The Coast Guard’s seizure of over 100,000 pounds of cocaine, in such a short timeframe, is a remarkable achievement," said Rear Adm. Jeffrey Novak, deputy commander of U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area. "When we say the Coast Guard is accelerating counter-narcotics operations, we mean it. Alongside our partners and allies, our maritime fighting force is scouring drug smuggling routes in the Eastern Pacific and dismantling narco-terrorist networks," Novak continued. "As we mark our interdiction of 100,000 pounds, we are already working towards the next milestone.” The Coast Guard is the United States’ lead federal agency for maritime drug interdiction, officials said, and its more than 76,000 members "operate a multi-mission, interoperable fleet of more than 220 cutters, 185 fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, 1,300 boats and its own dedicated cyber command to protect critical maritime infrastructure," according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

USA Today [10/14/2025 4:03 PM, Fernando Cervantes Jr, 67103K] reports as a nor’easter brought widespread rain and strong winds in Massachusetts over the weekend, a man was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard from the water off the coast of Falmouth. According to a news release from Falmouth Fire/Rescue, the man was spotted in the water at around 3:30 p.m. local time on Monday, Oct. 13, by a local ferry crew, who tried to rescue him by throwing life rings into the water. "Given poor visibility and rough seas due to ongoing storm conditions, responders immediately contacted the US Coast Guard and Harbor Master’s Office for additional resources," officials said. Officials added that the Coast Guard located the man at around 4:25 p.m. local time. Officials, who did not identify the man, said they’re unsure how he ended up in the water.

Axios [10/14/2025 1:16 PM, Sam Sabin, 12972K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security is laying off about 176 employees amid the Trump administration’s latest push to reduce the size of the federal government during the ongoing shutdown. Why it matters: Many, if not all, of these layoffs appear to be in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which has already lost one-third of its workforce from voluntary buyouts and early retirements. If all of these layoffs were to affect CISA, they would account for 7% of the agency’s total workforce as of the end of May. Threat level: The CISA cuts aren’t as big as those at Treasury (1,446 employees, per a court filing) or Health and Human Services (between 1,100 and 1,200 employees). But they are coming at an especially precarious time for U.S. cyber operations and are affecting an already shrunken workforce. About 35% of CISA’s workforce (as of May) has been sent home during the government shutdown. Meanwhile, Congress has allowed a 10-year-old program that enabled swift cyber-threat information sharing to lapse. And the threat landscape is quickly adapting to the new AI-enabled world, which promises faster, more sophisticated cyberattacks against companies. Zoom in: A DHS spokesperson said Friday that reduction-in-force notices "will be occurring at CISA." "During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering," the spokesperson added. "This is part of getting CISA back on mission." Staff within the agency’s Stakeholder Engagement and Infrastructure Security divisions were among those targeted in the latest round of cuts, according to Nextgov. The spokesperson did not mention layoffs at any other DHS entity and did not respond to a request yesterday to clarify if CISA is the only affected DHS agency.

NewsMax [10/14/2025 2:10 PM, Nicole Weatherholtz, 4109K] reports that as the government shutdown grinds on, the Trump administration is reportedly using layoffs and reassignments to reduce the size of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Experts told Cybersecurity Dive that the terminations and mandatory relocations — the most recent phase of the White House’s reduction of CISA — could further weaken the already diminished cyber-defense agency. According to a court filing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has laid off 176 federal employees since the government shut down on Oct. 1. A DHS spokesperson said that the majority of those layoffs were CISA employees due to the agency’s previous focus on election misinformation. "During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering," the spokesperson told Cybersecurity Dive. "This is part of getting CISA back on mission." Two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said that the layoffs affected employees in the following CISA divisions: The Stakeholder Engagement Division, which manages the cyber agency’s relationships with state, local, international and critical infrastructure partners. The Integrated Operations Division, which provides services to partner organizations and runs the agency’s around-the-clock watch center. CISA employees have been reassigned to roles with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Federal Protective Service, with many of these new positions located across the country from the employee’s present location.

CyberScoop [10/14/2002 3:45 PM, Greg Otto] reports Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., sent a letter Tuesday to acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala raising concerns about staffing levels and the direction of the nation’s primary cybersecurity agency, writing that the “Trump Administration has undertaken multiple efforts to decimate CISA’s workforce, undermining our nation’s cybersecurity.” Swalwell, the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, called out the agency for its reported shift of cybersecurity personnel to the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation efforts, on top of the approximately 760 people that have been let go from the agency since January. “Amid reports that the Department of Homeland Security is now forcibly transferring CISA’s cybersecurity employees to other DHS components, it has become apparent that the Department’s exclusive focus on its mass deportation campaign is coming at the expense of our national security,” Swalwell writes. “As further evidence of the Administration’s failure to prioritize cybersecurity, CISA is now engaging in Reductions in Force (RIFs) that threaten CISA’s capacity to prevent and respond to cybersecurity threats. I demand you immediately cease all efforts to cut CISA’s workforce, reinstate employees who were transferred or dismissed, and provide details on the impacts of the agency’s workforce reductions.” The letter is not the first time Swalwell has asked for information about CISA’s workforce. In April, he asked the agency to brief the subcommittee on its workforce plans. He wrote in Tuesday’s letter he had not heard back from CISA.

CyberScoop [10/14/2025 1:30 PM, Matt Kapko] reports federal authorities seized 127,271 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $15 billion, from Chen Zhi, the alleged leader of a sprawling cybercrime network based in Cambodia, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Officials said it’s the largest financial seizure on record. “Today’s action represents one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking and cyber-enabled financial fraud,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. Officials said Chen, a 38-year-old United Kingdom and Cambodian national who has renounced his Chinese citizenship, built a business empire under the Prince Group umbrella headquartered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that constructs, operates and manages scam compounds that rely on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. A criminal indictment against Chen was also unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He remains at large and the FBI is seeking information about his whereabouts. Chen faces up to 40 years in prison for his alleged crimes. Chen is accused of founding and running Prince Group since 2015, resulting in a global expansion that has brought the cybercrime network’s operations to dozens of entities spanning more than 30 countries.

Blaze [10/14/2025 9:38 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1442K] reports that President Donald Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination by a radical assassin who allegedly etched Antifa slogans into his bullet casings. In the interest of obliging Trump and finally destroying Antifa, the Justice Department and the FBI have evidently appealed to the expertise of some of those Americans who chronicled Antifa terrorists’ crimes, analyzed their tactics, and identified their supporters while authorities previously sat on their hands. Antifa is an anarcho-communist militant group that has long threatened lives and property throughout the Western world. In a show that debuted on Oct. 8 titled "Unmasking Antifa: The Dark Truth Behind Its Well-Funded Network," Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck took a deep dive, "shattering the myth" that Antifa is leaderless and decentralized. "We analyzed the Antifa network," Beck said with regard to his show last week. "And we went from the street thugs, to the support groups, eventually to the funding." Beck added, "To say the FBI was interested in this might be an understatement." Just days after the show’s initial broadcast, Beck received a knock on the door from the FBI. "Let’s just say the FBI is turning over every single stone," continued Beck. "It is so clear to me that they are exploring all angles of this, and they are talking to anyone and everyone that can give them any kind of information. "How do I know?" Beck asked. He then immediately began to explain why he is confident that federal authorities are serious about Antifa this time.

FOX News [10/14/2025 8:13 PM, Jasmine Baehr, 40621K] reports Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are pressing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claiming that it may be funded or directed by Hamas or other terrorist groups. CAIR describes itself as a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization founded in 1994 with chapters across the U.S. The request comes as President Donald Trump led a ceasefire in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. Stefanik and Cotton allege CAIR’s historic ties, public rhetoric and activism raise questions about whether the group’s support for Hamas amounts to material support for terrorism. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces U.S. sanctions on terrorist groups and their affiliates, has the authority to investigate whether CAIR’s activities violate federal law, the lawmakers said. CAIR has long denied accusations of supporting Hamas, saying it "does not support any foreign organization or government" and calling such claims "false and Islamophobic," according to a statement on its website. The group says its mission is to advocate for Muslim civil rights in the U.S. Stefanik chairs the House Republican Conference, and Cotton sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Both have pressed for stricter enforcement of anti-terror finance laws in past oversight efforts. In July, Stefanik criticized the City University of New York for hiring a former CAIR employee. She called the decision unacceptable to New York taxpayers. She and Cotton say a Treasury probe would ensure no U.S. assets are used to advance the objectives of Hamas. "We urge the department to immediately investigate whether CAIR maintains financial links to Hamas that violate U.S. sanctions," they wrote. CAIR did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [10/14/2025 1:33 PM, Staff, 36480K] reports that a 38-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to attempting to murder Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in an April arson attack on the governor’s residence in which he scaled a fence and ignited part of the house with gasoline-filled beer bottles as Shapiro and his family slept inside. Cody Balmer also pleaded guilty to terrorism, 22 counts of arson, 21 counts of reckless endangerment, burglary, aggravated assault, and loitering, according to records from the Dauphin County Court in Pennsylvania. A Pennsylvania judge sentenced Balmer to 25 to 50 years in state prison, according to Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo, who prosecuted the case. The April attack was part of a surge in political violence in the United States. There were about 150 politically motivated attacks in the first half of 2025, nearly double the number from that period last year, according to political violence researchers. In an emotional press conference on Tuesday, Shapiro said the attack had taken a profound toll on him and his family, and that despite rising levels of political violence in the U.S., nobody should "grow numb" to it. "We need real accountability for acts of political violence, and today is real accountability for the violence that came here to Pennsylvania," said Shapiro, who is seen as a potential candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028. After the attack, Balmer told police he "harbored hatred" toward Shapiro and would have beaten him with a hammer if he had encountered the governor inside the residence. The AP [10/14/2025 3:57 PM, Ark Scolforo, 2416K] reports that the fire was set hours after they celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover with a Seder in the residence. Prosecutors played video clips that showed Molotov cocktails going off and a figure inside and outside the residence. Judge Deborah Curcillo called the video "horrific" and "very frightening.” Balmer told police he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he had encountered him after breaking into the building, according to court documents. Balmer turned himself in the next afternoon to face charges of attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault.

Reported similarly:
Los Angeles Times [10/14/2025 12:46 PM, Mark Scolforo, 14862K]
Axios [10/14/2025 11:20 AM, Ryan Deto, 12972K]
Daily Wire [10/14/2025 7:21 AM, Zach Jewell, 2494K]

AP [10/14/2025 4:31 PM, Staff, 31753K] reports a fifth person has been arrested and charged with capital murder in a weekend shooting that left six dead and more than a dozen injured in a small Mississippi town, the FBI said. Terrogernal S. Martin, 33, was arrested Tuesday and received a $1 million cash bond, according to the FBI in Jackson. Additional arrests are pending, the agency said without elaborating. The arrest comes a day after the FBI announced that Teviyon L. Powell, 29, William Bryant, 29, and Morgan Lattimore, 25, are charged with capital murder, while Latoya A. Powell, 44, is charged with attempted murder in the Friday night shooting. Washington County Coroner LaQuesha Watkins said four people died at the scene: Oreshama Johnson, 41, Calvin Plant, 19, Shelbyona Powell, 25, and Kaslyn Johnson, 18. She said the coroner’s office in Hinds County called to say another victim, 18-year-old Amos Brand Jr. had died from his injuries. Her office also got notice from the Shelby County medical examiner that JaMichael Jones, 34, had also died from his injuries. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for Friday night’s shooting in Leland, but the FBI has said the gunfire appears to have been "sparked by a disagreement among several individuals."

CBS News [10/14/2025 5:44 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE reports the man who opened fire at a Dallas ICE facility last month believed he had radiation sickness and wore cotton gloves to avoid contact with plastic, according to records obtained by the Associated Press.

NBC News [10/14/2025 1:44 PM, Daniel Arkin, 34509K] reports that five major broadcast news networks announced Tuesday that they will not sign the Pentagon’s new press policy before an afternoon deadline, joining several other media organizations that have objected to a set of rules that many journalists consider restrictive. "Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues," NBC News said in a joint statement with ABC News, CBS News, CNN and Fox News Media. "The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press," the news organizations added. The new policy says reporters could have their press passes revoked if they publish information that has not been authorized for release by the Pentagon, even if the information is unclassified. The deadline to sign the new policy is 5 p.m. ET Tuesday, according to the Defense Department. Any media professional who declines to sign has 24 hours to turn in their Pentagon press credential and "clear their spaces" inside the sprawling government complex. "Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X on Monday. Hegseth was previously employed by Fox News, where he co-hosted "Fox & Friends Weekend."

Washington Post [10/15/2025 5:00 AM, Salvador Rizzo, 32099K] reports an adviser to the Defense and State departments known as a leading expert on Indian and South Asian affairs has been charged with violating the Espionage Act by retaining more than 1,000 pages of records with classified markings at his home. Ashley J. Tellis, who had served on the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s administration and as a senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador in India, was arrested Saturday after the FBI raided his home in Vienna, Virginia, finding hundreds of pages with classification markings in the basement, according to court records. Tellis was charged with unlawful retention of national defense information, for which the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison. A naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, Tellis had a top-secret security clearance through his dual roles as an unpaid senior counselor to the State Department and contractor with the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, a think tank within the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this year that the office was being abolished. According to an FBI affidavit, U.S. officials had been investigating Tellis for years. He was spotted having dinner with Chinese officials in Northern Virginia on at least four occasions from 2022 to last month, and was overheard discussing Iranian-Chinese relations, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, an FBI agent said in the court filing. In the charging documents filed in U.S. District Court, officials said Tellis had printed hundreds of pages of classified records at Defense and State facilities in the Washington region since last month, including more than 350 pages from a document that bore markings showing that it was classified at the “secret” level and contained risk-sensitive information from a foreign government that had been obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

AP [10/14/2025 1:25 PM, Lorne Cook, 852K] reports NATO defense ministers will meet on Wednesday to try to drum up more military support for Ukraine amid a sharp drop in deliveries of weapons and ammunition to the war-ravaged country in recent months. The ministers will also debate a call from NATO’s commander to lift restrictions on the use of their aircraft and other equipment so they can be used to defend the alliance’s eastern border with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine more effectively. A series of mysterious drone incidents and airspace violations by Russian war planes has fueled concerns that President Vladimir Putin might be testing NATO’s defensive reflexes. Some leaders have accused him of waging a hybrid war in Europe. Moscow denies probing NATO’s defenses. Russia’s conventional war on its neighbor is now focused on Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter. Moscow’s latest campaign is aimed at disabling Ukraine’s power supply, denying civilians heat and running water as temperatures drop. At the same time, new data on Western military aid to Ukraine is showing that it plunged by 43% in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks defense and financial support to Kyiv. The fall occurred even after European allies began buying American weapons for Ukraine under a financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL. The United States does not donate any equipment to Ukraine, either through the scheme or bilaterally. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have been buying U.S. weapons to send to Ukriane. But Italy and Spain, among other members of the 32-nation alliance, are sending very little compared to these NATO partners. “Time and again, some countries are lagging far behind what they should do,” a senior NATO diplomat said ahead of the meeting. “If Ukraine falls,” he said, “defense expenditure will be much higher than 5%” of gross domestic product, NATO’s current and ambitious spending target. The diplomat briefed reporters about the concerns on condition that he not be named as they weren’t allowed to speak to the press. Many countries – Italy among them – are struggling with economic challenges. France believes European money would be better invested in Europe’s defense industry rather than that of the U.S. and it does not intend to take part in PURL.

FOX News [10/14/2025 10:34 AM, Caitlin McFall, 40621K] reports that Russia on Monday night hit a Ukrainian hospital in its continued intensive aerial campaign, just hours after President Donald Trump said he would "speak" with Moscow on giving Kyiv Tomahawk missiles in a thinly veiled threat. Russia, which has repeatedly claimed it does not target civilians, has routinely hit hospitals throughout its more than three-and-a-half-year-long war, and injured six patients in the Kharkiv region after it hit a facility housing more than 100 patients with precision-guided KAB bombs, reported local news outlet the Kyiv Independent. Just hours prior, Trump, while on board Air Force One Monday morning, told Fox News that he might have to "speak" with Russian President Vladimir Putin on what Russia could be facing should the U.S. hand over the sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine. "They need Patriots very badly. They’d like to have tomahawks – that’s a step up," Trump said following a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday. "They’d like to have Tomahawks. We talked about that and so we’ll see. I don’t know, I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest with you, about Tomahawks," he added in reference to the high-precision long-range cruise missile. "Do they want to have the Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so." Zelenskyy and Trump are set to meet in Washington on Friday to discuss Ukraine’s air defenses and advancing the pressure on Putin as Europe and the U.S. look to counter his increasingly aggressive posture.

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