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.

NewsNation [5/20/2026 12:45 PM, Staff, 4464K] reports President Donald Trump was in Connecticut where he delivered the keynote address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s graduation on Wednesday. Trump addressed 145th graduating class at Cadet Memorial Field in New London. The Coast Guard said in a news release that the ceremony is not open to the public. Designated public assembly areas will be set up at McKinley Park at the corner of Williams Street and Crystal Avenue, New London police told NewsNation affiliate WTNH. Another assembly area will be at a grass parcel on Williams Street past a nearby overpass. The president last spoke at the graduation ceremony during his first term in 2017. Breitbart [5/20/2026 4:43 PM, Nick Gilbertson, 2238K] reports that the president traveled to the academy in New London, Connecticut, to speak to graduates in the morning. Trump thanked the cadets’ families for raising "American patriots" and told the cadets they "have an amazing future" ahead of them. Trump singled out cadet Thomas Rhoades, who excelled in every fitness test over the last four years. The AP [5/20/2026 12:56 PM, Michelle L. Price and Kimberlee Kruesi, 3833K] reports President Donald Trump told the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s graduates on Wednesday that they show “unbelievable heroism and exceptional selflessness” but that the cadets will “be tested further” as they embark on their military careers. Trump’s remarks to the class of 2026 were the first time he has given a commencement address at one of the nation’s military academies after sending U.S. troops to fight a new war. He told the cadets that they will be America’s “first defenders” and “first responders.” “You’ve all been tested. You’ll be tested further and probably at higher levels as your career goes on,” Trump said. During his address, Trump quickly touched on the war with Iran, now in its 12th week, as a sign of U.S. success from “the hottest country anywhere in the world.” “The only question is, do we go ahead and finish it up or are they going to be signing a document? Let’s see what happens,” Trump said. The Washington Post [5/20/2026 1:30 PM, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., 24826K] reports President Donald Trump told newly commissioned Coast Guard officers Wednesday that they would play a key role in both defending the homeland and advancing what he called America’s “national resurgence.” “Every branch of our armed forces protects American lives, but the Coast Guard is the only service explicitly dedicated to saving them,” Trump said during the commencement ceremony at the United States Coast Guard Academy. “You never leave an American behind, and you never would.” Trump framed the Coast Guard’s mission as central to several of his administration’s domestic priorities, including border enforcement, combating drug trafficking and cracking down on illegal immigration. And in the tradition of commencement speeches, he offered advice to the graduates that reflected his own life. “Wherever the duty call, whatever danger comes your way, you will fight, fight, fight, and you will win, win, win,” Trump said. “Never stop pushing forward,” he told the graduates. “Never surrender, keep fighting, keep going.” Trump briefly mentioned the war with Iran, now in its 12th week, praising the Coast Guard’s role in helping to enforce the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and suggesting, as he has often done throughout the conflict, that it will soon end either through military action or a negotiated agreement. FOX News [5/20/2026 3:10 PM, Ryan Morik, 37576K] reports that, while speaking at the graduation in New London, Connecticut, Trump said that the graduating class was "blessed with many tremendous athletes" and invited two in particular to join him on stage. First, Trump introduced Broock Desta, the academy’s all-time leader in receptions, yards and touchdowns. Next to the stage was women’s lacrosse star Abby McAllister, the women’s lacrosse program’s all-time leader in assists and points. Trump was also presented a Coast Guard football helmet. Newsweek [5/20/2026 1:06 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports President Donald Trump joked about cadets spending time at “Mr. G’s” before announcing during the United States Coast Guard Academy commencement address that he was lifting restrictions for cadets with minor — and some major — conduct infractions. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Breitbart [5/20/2026 11:17 AM, Staff, 2238K]
The Hill [5/20/2026 10:29 AM, Staff, 18170K]
NBC News [5/20/2026 9:10 AM, Staff, 42967K]
USA Today [5/20/2026 10:55 AM, Gabe Hauari, 70643K]
Washington Times [5/20/2026 1:07 PM, Tom Howell Jr, 1323K]
Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 10:42 AM, Emily Hallas, 1147K]

The Hill [5/20/2026 11:14 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports Senate Republicans advanced a budget reconciliation bill on Wednesday that would fund immigration agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through 2029, teeing up the possibility for votes on the floor as soon as this week. The Senate Budget Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to report out portions of the bill that were passed the previous day by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The full $72 million package includes $30.73 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $22.57 billion for Customs and Border Protection to hire, train, pay and equip personnel. Those agencies were split off earlier this spring from a larger DHS appropriations bill that ended a record-long, partial government shutdown. Democrats held up the legislation by refusing to support funding that did not include tighter restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. Senate Republicans are now pushing the package through reconciliation, a special partisan process that allows the majority party to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold and pass it with a simple majority. “I’m an appropriator, I very much like regular order, but unfortunately, when it comes to ICE and the Border Patrol, we were not able to achieve an outcome in the appropriations process, so reconciliation’s available to us,” Budget Committee Chair Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. GOP lawmakers have been working to redraft language since Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled last week that several elements failed to comply with the Byrd Rule, which prohibits “extraneous” provisions from being included in budget reconciliation bills. Among those is a $1 billion provision for the U.S. Secret Service that would allow for security upgrades to the White House complex tied to the construction of President Trump’s massive ballroom, a boost that has drawn skepticism from both sides of the aisle. A group of Senate Republicans, including Graham, floated taxpayer funding for the ballroom project after a gunman opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, arguing the ballroom was a security necessity.

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Federal News Network [5/20/2026 2:29 PM, Michele Sandiford, 1297K]
Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 11:13 AM, Brady Knox, 1147K]

Politico [5/20/2026 10:28 AM, Jennifer Scholtes, 21784K] reports Senate Republicans took the last step Wednesday to tee up their $72 billion party-line immigration enforcement bill for floor action. Following the 11-10 vote in the Senate Budget Committee, GOP leaders plan to begin debate on the measure either later Wednesday or Thursday. Since lawmakers are scheduled to leave town for a weeklong Memorial Day recess, Republicans need to clear the bill through both chambers by week’s end if they are going to meet the June 1 deadline President Donald Trump set for clearing the legislation. The Budget Committee approved only one of two pieces of the package, since Senate GOP leaders are still revamping the portion of the bill that contains $1 billion for Secret Service security upgrades — including “enhancements” to the president’s White House ballroom project. Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he didn’t know if that funding for the renovation of the East Wing of the White House would ultimately remain in the legislation. “We’ll see how that plays out,” he said, arguing that the shooting last month during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner “should wake us up a little bit” to the need for a more secure location to host formal events the president attends. That funding faces procedural challenges under the strict rules of the reconciliation process GOP leaders are using to pass the package at a simple-majority threshold, rather than meet the 60-vote bar under the Senate filibuster. But several Republican senators have raised objections as well.

AP [5/21/2026 12:11 AM, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti, 2238K] reports Senate Republican leaders are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom on Thursday after members of their own party questioned the timing and the lack of detail in the Secret Service request. Pressured by the White House, Republicans have tried to add the money to a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal met with backlash from some GOP lawmakers who are questioning the cost and how the taxpayer dollars would be used. The bill’s text has not yet been released, but the Senate hopes to pass it this week and send it to the House before leaving for a weeklong Memorial Day recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged “ongoing vote issues” on Wednesday as leaders tired to measure Republican support, as well as “ongoing parliamentarian issues” as they try to figure out what will be allowed in the bill under the chamber’s rules. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Wednesday that the bill would be “back to square one” without the security money because “the votes are not there.” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea” and he does not think there is enough backing to pass it, even if the cost were reduced. The wrangling comes as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about basic affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump. Several GOP senators have spoken out against the administration’s $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies who believe they have been persecuted, and many were upset by the president’s endorsement Tuesday of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the party primary runoff next week against Sen. John Cornyn. “There’s always a consequence with taking on United States senators,” Thune said Wednesday. The president “obviously has his favorites and people he wants to endorse and that’s his prerogative. But what we have to deal with up here is moving the agenda, and obviously that can become slightly more complicated.” The “anti-weaponization” fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, has unexpectedly become one of the main complications in the bill. Democrats said they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it. Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the immigration enforcement bill through a complicated budget process that requires a long series of amendment votes. Democrats are considering multiple amendments, potentially to block that new fund outright or to ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Those amendments, along with others, could pass as a growing number of Republicans have voiced reservations about the fund. So Republicans are now discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off, potentially placing some parameters on the settlement and who could receive compensation, according to two people with knowledge of the private discussions who requested anonymity to discuss them. Thune — who said Tuesday that he is “not a big fan” of the settlement and doesn’t see a purpose for it —- said Wednesday that any new language potentially putting restrictions on the settlement is “a work in progress.” It’s unclear how any Senate Republican changes would be received in the House, even as some Republicans there have also criticized the settlement. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that the House will pass the bill “whatever form it takes.”

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Politico [5/20/2026 4:15 PM, Jordain Carney and Jennifer Scholtes, 21784K]
Reuters [5/20/2026 3:43 PM, Richard Cowan, 38315K]
Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 6:33 PM, Ramsey Touchberry, 1147K]

Washington Post [5/20/2026 2:06 PM, Isaac Arnsdorf and Jarrell Dillard, 24826K] reports that President Donald Trump for the first time called for the firing of the Senate’s parliamentarian, days after she rejected a Republican attempt to include money related to his proposed White House ballroom in a bill that funds immigration enforcement agencies. The parliamentarian is a nonpartisan official who advises on Senate procedures. Lawyer Elizabeth MacDonough has served in the role since 2012, appointed by then-Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) after 13 years as an assistant in the office. Trump’s demand on Wednesday for her ouster did not mention the ballroom or other specific objections, but he accused her of bias. On Saturday MacDonough determined Senate Republicans’ plan for including $1 billion for security around the East Wing construction project and other Secret Service priorities in the immigration bill did not comply with the chamber’s rules as written. Republicans revised their proposal and were awaiting a new decision on Wednesday. “Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats — So why has she not been replaced?” Trump said on social media, using a pejorative for the opposition party. “Get smart and tough Republicans, or you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!” The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s post. MacDonough did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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FOX News [5/20/2026 1:22 PM, Alex Miller, 37576K]

Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 1:23 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1147K] reports arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants have soared to all-time highs in President Donald Trump’s second term, but the administration has faced significant hurdles maintaining its momentum in recent months, according to White House border czar Tom Homan, prompting some concerns from Trump’s base that his administration is abandoning promised mass deportations. Approximately 641,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federal partners in 16 months, while more than 800,000 have been removed from the United States, Homan explained in a lengthy interview with the Washington Examiner at the White House complex this week. “Total of 800,000 [have been removed] out of the country,” Homan said. “If you take 60% of that, criminals, hundreds of thousands of public safety threats, have been removed from this country. Name another president who’s done that.” Democrats and some Republicans have criticized ICE for arresting illegal immigrants who have no criminal history in the U.S. On the other hand, many of Trump’s supporters are frustrated that more noncriminal illegal immigrants have not been arrested, leaving Homan and the Department of Homeland Security in a difficult position. “I know there’s a lot of noise out there about, ‘You shouldn’t be just concentrating on criminals, you ought to be arresting everybody,’ but we are pursuing a broad range of arrests,” Homan said, dressed in a dark blue suit with a darker green tie, donning a five-o’clock shadow. “I don’t know why people don’t understand, just because you prioritize public safety threats doesn’t mean you arrest somebody else.” Homan admitted the administration’s immigration enforcement operation has slowed recently. But he laid out a comprehensive plan to respond to those delays, as well as take back the narratives that the Department of Homeland Security is focused too intently on either criminals or noncriminals, and how the White House will soon unleash fury on those complicating the executive branch’s plans. “There’s a lot of argument within the world that, ‘Are we keeping our promise?’” Homan said. “Numbers are slightly down, but there’s a plan. Get them back up and even higher.” In his eight years since returning from retirement to lead ICE during Trump’s first term, he has taken on the role of a domestic diplomat as the lead negotiator with often hostile Democratic state and local officials on immigration matters. He spent the Biden administration years consulting and working in the gap between private and public sectors, gaining an understanding of the former before returning to government work.

Daily Caller [5/20/2026 4:30 PM, Nick Naulty, 803K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan admitted Wednesday that deportations are "slightly down" as the Trump administration faces pressure to ramp up the "mass deportations" the president campaigned on. Homan told the Washington Examiner that 800,000 illegal immigrants have been removed from the country — stating 60% of them are criminals and hundreds of thousands are safety threats — but acknowledged the pace of deportations has slowed down. The admitted slowdown has come amid court fights, sanctuary city resistance, political fallout following Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis, and the transition in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from former Secretary Kristi Noem to Secretary Markwayne Mullin. DHS pushed back on the idea that immigration enforcement is slowing, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that the second Trump administration has removed more than three million illegal immigrants from the country. Homan’s 800,000 removals come after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded roughly 10.9 million nationwide encounters from fiscal years 2021 through 2024, which largely covered the Biden administration, including more than 8.7 million at the southwest border, according to CBP data. The gap has frustrated immigration hardliners, who argue that the administration is not moving quickly enough on Trump’s promises. Mullin has signaled an effort to stabilize DHS after months of headlines regarding ICE and Border Patrol and pro-enforcement groups hoped he would restore credibility to the department. The newly formed Mass Deportation Coalition has been pressing the administration to ramp up its deportation policies and encouraging Mullin to review its soon-to-be plan to deport one million illegal immigrants from the country.

Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 3:46 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1147K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan is the leading deportations official in the Trump administration and sat down with the Washington Examiner on the White House campus this week to discuss a slew of related issues, including which illegal immigrants are being targeted for arrest, going after sanctuary cities, Democrats’ role in the partial government shutdown, and crime in Washington, D.C. Washington Examiner homeland security reporter Anna Giaritelli spoke with Homan on Monday, May 18, about his work thus far and where President Donald Trump intends to take his immigration enforcement plans from here. Below is a transcript of the conversation, which can be found on the Washington Examiner’s YouTube page.

The Hill [5/20/2026 6:00 AM, Rebecca Beitsch, 18170K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has scored positive reviews from Republican lawmakers who were less pleased with the performance of his predecessor. Mullin has been on the job nearly two months, and while the policies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) haven’t undergone dramatic transformation during his leadership, department observers see a shift in approach. “There is no comparison whatsoever,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. In former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s final hearing before Congress, Tillis excoriated her on everything from the deaths of two Minnesotans at the hands of immigration officers to holding up disaster aid to killing her dog. “Markwayne’s making all the right choices. He’s relying on [border czar Tom] Homan. He’s stipulating that there were changes that needed to be made. … I’m impressed with what he’s doing. And I’ll tell you, what I’m really impressed with is the mood of the building. There is a sea of change in the way that they’re being treated, and the respect the career staff are being given.” Under Mullin’s leadership, the Trump administration is still carrying out aggressive immigration enforcement. But the department had pulled away from the advertised raids that drew protesters as teams moved from city to city. “We’re not going into New York like another Minneapolis,” Mullin said earlier this month during an appearance on Fox News.

AP [5/20/2026 3:18 PM, Kemo Cham and Mark Banchereau] reports nine migrants deported from the United States landed in Sierra Leone on Wednesday, the West African country said, in the latest example of the Trump administration’s widely criticized deals with African and Latin American nations to take third-country deportees. Five migrants are from Ghana, two from Guinea, one from Senegal and one from Nigeria, the ministry of information said. The deals have raised questions about respect for the migrants’ rights. The ministry’s statement said the new arrivals "have been checked into their hosting facilities, are comfortable and receiving the necessary support." It said 24 deportees were initially expected but didn’t provide details. According to court documents seen by The Associated Press, a U.S. federal judge halted a woman’s deportation to Sierra Leone after the government failed to let her seek protection under the Convention Against Torture, as required by law. Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Timothy Kabba, told local media Wednesday the government has agreed to temporarily receive migrants deported by the Trump administration, saying it only accepts West African nationals and the agreement is supported by a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. government. The program is capped at 25 deportees per month and 300 per year, according to the ministry. It did not specify the duration of the arrangement.

Washington Times [5/20/2026 9:21 AM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports Federal authorities unveiled charges against a Canadian man they say repeatedly voted in elections in Massachusetts and lied that he was eligible as a U.S. citizen. Sunny Manhertz, 40, was a lawful permanent resident here, having immigrated as a child in 1987, but never attained U.S. citizenship. Despite that, he cast ballots in more than a dozen elections at the local, state and national levels, Homeland Security Investigations said. They found records dating to 2012 and said Mr. Manhertz admitted to voting as early as 2008. He even identified his polling place to agents, according to court documents. "Manhertz knew that he was not a United States citizen," the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts said in announcing the case Tuesday. He faces one count of illegal voting by an alien and one count of casting a false or fraudulent ballot. HSI agents said they came across his case as part of a broader review of voter registration records. Mr. Manhertz’s case underscores the lack of verification for citizenship that pervades voting.

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NewsMax [5/20/2026 5:54 PM, Staff, 3760K]

AP [5/20/2026 3:34 PM, Jake Zuckerman, 35287K] reports a U.S. citizen was found not guilty Tuesday of illegally voting in the 2018 election when she was a lawful permanent resident of the United States. A guilty verdict would have led to up to 18 months in prison for Maria Dearaujo, 63. But Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Chris Brown sided with the defense’s argument of entrapment. This generally entails a government actor leading a person into committing a crime they wouldn’t have otherwise committed. Brown, a Democrat, said Dearaujo’s trial testimony lines up with the documentary evidence. She admitted to “inconvenient” facts like having voted when she knew she was not a citizen. But she got the idea from and relied on the advice of a Bureau of Motor Vehicles clerk. Neither the state prosecutor on the case nor Yost’s press team would say whether the office plans an appeal.

The Hill [5/20/2026 6:13 PM, Tara Suter, 18170K] reports the U.S. is targeting fentanyl distribution for the Sinaloa Cartel with new sanctions, according to the Treasury Department. In a Wednesday press release, the Treasury Department said that its Office of Foreign Assets Control had sanctioned over 12 entities and people “comprising two distinct networks, linked to the terrorist Sinaloa Cartel and its fentanyl trafficking activities.” “As President Trump has made clear, this Administration will not allow narco-terrorists to flood our borders with poison,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release. “Treasury will continue to target terrorist cartels and their fentanyl trafficking networks to protect our communities and Keep America Safe.” According to the release, two of the people being sanctioned include Armando de Jesus Ojeda Aviles and Jesus Gonzalez Penuelas, with Ojeda Aviles described as heading up “a network involved in laundering the proceeds of fentanyl and other narcotics trafficking activities” for the cartel. Gonzales Penuelas is described as being a leader of “a longstanding organization involved in trafficking illicit drugs into the United States and laundering funds” in service of the cartel. Late last month, the State Department issued visa restrictions for 75 people who they claimed were linked to the Sinaloa Cartel in an effort to tamp down on the Mexican transnational crime organization’s drug trafficking operations. “The Sinaloa Cartel smuggles illicit fentanyl, which the President designated as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and other deadly drugs that harm American communities,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement at the time. The AP [5/20/2026 10:27 AM, Fatima Hussein, 16072K] reports that a restaurant in Chihuahua, called Gorditas Chiwas — controlled by sanctioned businessman Alfredo Orozco Romero — was hit with sanctions. The sanctions cut them off from the U.S. banking system, cut off their ability to work with Americans and block their U.S. assets. Its unclear how embedded the sanctioned individuals and firms are in the U.S. financial system. Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement that Treasury, "will continue to target terrorist cartels and their fentanyl trafficking networks to protect our communities and Keep America Safe.” Fentanyl, a powerful opioid, is the deadliest drug in the U.S. today. A tiny amount, 2 milligrams, ingested into the body can be fatal. And while drug overdoses dramatically increased over the last two decades, with the number of deaths increasing approximately 520% from 1999 to 2023, drug overdose deaths are beginning to decline — by nearly 3% from 2022 to 2023, according to the latest CDC data.

NewsMax [5/20/2026 7:19 PM, James Morley III, 3760K] reports the Department of the Treasury announced Wednesday sanctions against more than a dozen individuals and entities tied to the Sinaloa cartel. The sanctions targeted two separate networks accused of laundering drug proceeds and facilitating fentanyl trafficking into the United States. The sanctions, issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, focus on a cryptocurrency-based money laundering operation led by Armando de Jesus Ojeda Aviles and a long-standing drug trafficking and laundering organization headed by fugitive cartel figure Jesus Gonzalez Penuelas. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration would continue pursuing cartel-linked operations responsible for flooding U.S. communities with fentanyl. The Sinaloa cartel, designated earlier this year as a foreign terrorist organization, is considered one of the largest suppliers of illicit fentanyl entering the United States. Officials said the cartel’s Los Chapitos faction, led by the sons of imprisoned kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, has expanded fentanyl production and trafficking through chemical procurement networks and clandestine laboratories in Mexico. According to the Treasury, Ojeda Aviles oversaw the collection of drug money in the United States and its conversion into cryptocurrency before transferring proceeds back to cartel leaders in Mexico. Several associates and businesses tied to the network, including a Mexican security company and restaurant, were also sanctioned. The second network centered on Gonzalez Penuelas, who authorities say has trafficked methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl into the United States since 2007. U.S. officials have offered a combined $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. The sanctions freeze any U.S.-based assets linked to the designated individuals and prohibit Americans from conducting business with them. The Treasury warned that foreign financial institutions facilitating transactions for those targeted could also face secondary sanctions.

FOX News [5/20/2026 7:33 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] Video: HERE reports a woman allegedly tied to Minnesota’s massive "Feeding Our Future" scandal has been charged in a daycare fraud scheme after being featured in a viral video by influencer Nick Shirley, authorities said. She is accused of pocketing millions of dollars meant for children’s meals. Fahima Egeh Mahamud was charged Wednesday with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States, according to court documents. Earlier this year, Mahamud was indicted for her alleged role in the initial $250 million "Feeding Our Future" scheme. Prosecutors allege she enrolled Future Leaders Early Learning — a Minneapolis daycare where she served as CEO — into the federal child nutrition program, falsely claiming to serve thousands of meals at her childcare center. In addition to her involvement in the nutrition program fraud, Mahamud was federally charged Wednesday with a secondary scheme to defraud the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), which provides daycare assistance to low-income families. Between October 2022 and December 2025, she allegedly submitted over 13,000 fraudulent claims to CCAP totaling approximately $4.6 million. Prosecutors state the claims were fraudulent because she falsely certified that she had collected mandatory co-payments from families, which is a material requirement for federal reimbursement.

NPR [5/21/2026 4:42 AM, David Ovalle, 34837K] reports a 60-year-old shelter for immigrant children run by Catholic Charities in Miami is shutting down due to curbed federal funds. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Breitbart [5/20/2026 2:34 PM, John Binder, 2238K] reports that Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is introducing legislation that will prohibit the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from issuing certain grants to cities and states that provide housing assistance to illegal aliens or those with sanctuary policies on the books. Roy’s "No Housing Welfare for Illegal Aliens Act," shared exclusively with Breitbart News, would ban HUD from giving grants under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program and the Home Program to jurisdictions that use taxpayer dollars to provide housing assistance to illegal aliens. "For too long, hardworking Americans have been forced to watch their tax dollars bankroll benefits for individuals who broke our laws to enter this country," Roy told Breitbart News. Likewise, sanctuary cities, counties, and states would be barred from receiving such grants. The bill similarly prevents such jurisdictions from dispersing grant funds to third-party entities that offer housing assistance to illegal aliens, a move that Roy says is critical to closing a welfare loophole. "The No Housing Welfare for Illegal Aliens Act puts Americans first by ending housing subsidies for illegal aliens, shutting down loopholes for mixed-status households, and cutting off federal grants to sanctuary cities that defy federal immigration enforcement," Roy said. "Federal housing assistance should go to American citizens and legal residents — not reward immigration lawbreakers."

AP [5/20/2026 12:37 PM, Steven Sloan and Joey Cappelletti, 35287K] reports that in a Republican-led Congress defined by deference to President Donald Trump, there is a small but steadily growing group that has shown itself more willing to break ranks with the White House. Although the president maintains a firm grip on Republican voters, this expanding club could hinder his agenda on issues ranging from a war with Iran to funding for immigration policy—at a time when the president’s party holds a precarious majority on Capitol Hill. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the newest member of this club. Just days after losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Cassidy shifted his stance on Tuesday regarding legislation related to the conflict with Iran, voting alongside Democrats to limit U.S. military action. "Given the way our Constitution is structured, Congress must hold the executive branch accountable," Cassidy told reporters the day before. Senator John Cornyn of Texas could be next, after Trump endorsed Ken Paxton—a rival of Cornyn’s for the Republican nomination—ahead of next week’s runoff election. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky is perhaps a founding member of the "YOLO caucus"—slang for "you only live once," used to describe a carefree or even reckless attitude. Massie has frustrated Trump since the president’s first term, and his status was cemented after he lost his primary on Tuesday to a Trump-backed opponent. Massie has infuriated Trump by voting against his signature tax-and-spend legislation and by pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. And he hinted that there is more to come before he leaves office.

Washington Post [5/20/2026 1:55 PM, Staff, 24826K] reports that the Trump administration often presents mass deportations as zero-sum: Fewer jobs for illegal immigrants means more, or at least higher-paid, jobs for citizens. In fact, deportations are likely to cost jobs for Americans. That’s according to a recent paper by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The authors took advantage of the administration’s uneven immigration enforcement around the country last year to conduct natural experiments on how it affects labor markets. They found that deportations reduced employment among male, American-born workers without a college degree by 1.3 percent across four immigrant-heavy industries: agriculture, construction, manufacturing and wholesale. The study found no evidence that wages increased. There’s a simple economic explanation for this: Illegal immigrant workers in these fields are not necessarily substitutes for their American-born peers; they are often complements. That is, these jobs often depend on one another to exist. If a construction company cannot find laborers to do carpentry work because immigration officers are arresting them, they will pursue fewer projects. That means hiring fewer workers with other skills. The paper’s findings undermine a common misconception, on the right and left, that employers are sitting on piles of money and could simply raise wages to fix a labor crunch. Yet the availability of skilled workers is often more of a limiting factor than the amount of money an employer pays them. Further, these industries — especially construction — are highly competitive. If costs suddenly rise, employers will have a harder time making a profit, which makes business ventures riskier. Developers are already dealing with higher material costs because of tariffs on crucial goods, such as steel, aluminum and lumber. Higher labor costs further squeeze balance sheets.

The Hill [5/20/2026 10:00 AM, Mary Ellen Callahan, 18170K] reports President Trump has announced that political appointee and adviser David Venturella will serve as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement once career official Todd Lyons retires this month. This is a very troubling move for an agency that has not had a Senate-confirmed leader in nearly a decade and is now absorbing billions of dollars in new funding through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with billions more potentially on the way through the reconciliation bill pending in the Senate. Venturella was a senior executive for more than a decade in the GEO Group, the detention conglomerate currently housing 86 percent of detainees in ICE custody. Upon his arrival as a political appointee last year, Venturella oversaw Homeland Security contracts for immigration detention centers after receiving a federal ethics waiver related to his obvious conflict of interest — overseeing contracts overwhelmingly given to his former employer. Furthermore, the big beautiful bill added $45 billion for immigration detention centers through 2029. The GEO Group stands to receive a significant share of those funds. When he was a senior vice president of GEO Group, Venturella held more than 180,000 shares of GEO Group stock, currently valued at $4 million. According to an ICE spokesperson, Venturella divested his GEO stocks and “has no financial ties to the company,” although there is no public record of any such transactions. When I was appointed chief of staff to Homeland Security Deputy Secretary John Tien (not a Senate-confirmed position — just a senior political appointee like Venturella’s original position), I had to divest from holding $100,000 in California Municipal Bonds before starting. Otherwise, as I was informed by career ethics officials, I could not work on issues “involving the state of California” because of potential bias. Certainly, at least that level of scrutiny is warranted for an executive overseeing an unprecedented surge in immigration detention facilities. Venturella needs to undergo the Senate confirmation process in order to understand whether his ties to GEO Group are disqualifying for him to serve as ICE director, whether it is appropriate for him to oversee the burgeoning detention portfolio, and whether he has actually divested from his GEO stock. ICE is receiving an extraordinary influx of funding. Through the big beautiful bill, reconciliation and multi-year funding, Congress effectively is abdicating its appropriations authority to oversee ICE spending, despite the exponential increase of funds (and opportunities for fraud).

Bloomberg Law [5/20/2026 12:39 PM, Taylor Mills, 763K] reports US Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be shifting its strategy as it faces environmental review headwinds in its campaign to buy and convert warehouses into detention centers across the country. The Department of Homeland Security is now conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews for two proposed facilities in New Jersey and Maryland, marking a policy shift after the agency initially exempted the projects from the months-long study process. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Michigan will hold a status conference in the state’s lawsuit over a proposed facility in Romulus, signaling another potential agreement to conduct a NEPA review may have been reached following the cancellation of a preliminary injunction hearing earlier in the week. Michigan’s lawsuit says the warehouse is located in a floodplain and has only one sewer line that can’t handle the needs of the planned 500 detainees and staff. While Maryland and New Jersey reached agreements with DHS to study impacts to local water supply and sewage systems, a spokesperson for Wayne County, Mich., said the agency hasn’t reached out or engaged in the consultation process required for a building retrofitting project of this caliber. "We’ve received no permitting request whatsoever," said Matt Allen, a director of communications for Wayne County.

Newsweek [5/20/2026 11:27 AM, Billal Rahman, 37576K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has outlined Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) planned role in security operations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, as the tournament faces signs of weaker-than-expected ticket demand in the weeks leading up to kickoff. In a video posted on the agency’s X account, Secretary Mullin said federal agencies would crack down on counterfeit goods and human trafficking. “Now what a lot of people don’t think about when they start talking about World Cup is what about the counterfeit products that come in or the human trafficking? When you have crowds this big, criminal activities follow,” Mullin said. He added that ICE and its investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), would work “every day” during the tournament alongside Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to address illicit activity. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for overseeing federal agencies such as ICE, HSI, and CBP. Mullins remarks offer an early glimpse of how federal immigration agencies will respond to the 2026 soccer World Cup, during the Trump administrations mass deportation drive. The event, hosted by the U.S, Canada, and Mexico, is expected to draw millions of visitors in one of the largest sporting events ever staged. Federal officials have previously said ICE’s involvement will primarily center on intelligence, coordination, and investigations into transnational crime, rather than routine immigration enforcement.

Federal Newswire [5/20/2026 3:05 PM, C. M. Ingle] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested several criminal illegal aliens convicted of serious crimes including murder, child rape, and cocaine trafficking, according to a May 20 statement from the agency. The arrests are part of ongoing efforts by ICE to remove individuals convicted of violent offenses from communities across the United States. The agency said these actions aim to address public safety concerns related to non-citizens who have committed severe crimes. Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said, “Every day, our ICE law enforcement officers are out on the street arresting criminal illegal aliens. Yesterday, the brave men and women of ICE arrested murderers, child rapists, cocaine traffickers, and other despicable criminals. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, ICE will continue to arrest and remove violent criminal illegal aliens who should have never been in our country in the first place.” Among those arrested were Sarath Lon from Cambodia for murder in Fall River, Massachusetts; Ramos Ortiz-Lopez from Mexico for two felony counts of rape of a child in Washington County, Washington; Raul Retana-Ramos from Mexico for trafficking over 400 grams of cocaine by possession and transport in Guilford County, North Carolina; Nazarjon Gayratjonovich Abdukahorov from Uzbekistan for luring or enticing a child by various means in Essex County, New Jersey—Abdukahorov is also a registered sex offender under Megan’s Law; and Daniel Leal from Mexico for attempted robbery causing physical injury in Jamaica, New York.

Bloomberg [5/21/2026 5:06 AM, Staff, 18082K] reports immigration raids in Charlotte, North Carolina, have done significant damage to local businesses. As in other communities, Donald Trump’s deportation campaign may be creating lasting economic voids. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NewsMax [5/20/2026 5:30 PM, Staff, 3760K] reports the Department of Justice has warned Maine that the state has until Friday to reverse a policy blocking confidential vehicle registrations and license plates for undercover immigration agents, escalating a conflict between the Trump administration and Democrat-led states over immigration enforcement and state cooperation with federal authorities. In a letter sent earlier this month to Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles was unlawfully refusing to issue undercover license plates to federal immigration officers unless the vehicles would not be used for civil immigration enforcement operations. Shumate warned the state that the policy violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause and threatened federal legal action if Maine does not rescind the restriction by May 22. "This discriminatory policy is not only deeply dangerous as a matter of public safety but also blatantly unlawful as a matter of constitutional law," Shumate wrote. "It should be immediately withdrawn; otherwise, the United States intends to seek judicial relief.” The dispute began in January after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat now running for governor, announced the state would pause issuing new confidential plates requested by federal immigration authorities. "These requests in light of rumors of ICE deployment to Maine and abuses of power in Minnesota and elsewhere raise concerns," Bellows said at the time. "We have not revoked existing plates but have paused issuance of new plates. We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes.” The Department of Justice said the policy could jeopardize undercover operations involving immigration enforcement, terrorism, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and fugitive investigations. "Officers could be identified and tracked to their homes," Shumate wrote. "Suspects could be alerted to officer presence and flee, destroy evidence, or take countermeasures to avoid arrest, making arrests more dangerous for all involved.”

CBS New York [5/20/2026 6:28 AM, Christina Fan, 51110K] reports just a day after a judge banned most arrests outside Manhattan immigration courts, a man was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [5/20/2026 2:11 PM, Amethyst Martinez, 70643K] reports that one day after a judge barred ICE from making arrests in certain courthouses except in extreme circumstances, immigration agents detained a 21-year-old from Honduras only to release him hours later. The arrest took place at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in New York City, and was one of three in Manhattan that was under a judge’s order. Here’s why federal officials say it wasn’t defying orders. The man, Vinely Alexander Castillo-Norales, was detained yesterday while outside of his court hearing, according to Congressman Dan Goldman. On Monday, a federal Manhattan judge, P. Kevin Castel, ruled that ICE agents could no longer make civil arrests at immigration courts 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick Street and 290 Broadway. Limited circumstances allow for arrests, such as a threat to national security, an imminent risk of death or violence, a threat of evidence destruction or if it involves a hot pursuit when public safety is at risk, according to the New York Times. In response to the decision, the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X that it is "confident we will ultimately be vindicated in this case." "Nothing prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them." DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.

Breitbart [5/20/2026 4:24 PM, John Binder, 2238K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is pleading with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) to keep an illegal alien locked up in jail who is accused of raping a child and possession of child pornography. Jorge Enrique Garcia-Rodriguez, an illegal alien unknown got-away from Mexico, was arrested last month in Franklin County, Virginia, and charged with one felony count of forcible intercourse with a victim under 13 years old and six felony counts of possession of child pornography. ICE agents have subsequently lodged a detainer against Garcia-Rodriguez, urging Franklin County officials not to release the illegal alien back into the community.

Univision [5/20/2026 4:23 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed new legislation on May 20, 2026, and issued an executive order intended to restrict certain federal immigration enforcement activities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on state property, including public schools, hospitals, and polling places. Spanberger enacted House Bill 1482 and Senate Bill 352, measures focused on strengthening transparency and accountability in law enforcement. In addition, she issued Executive Order 16, which establishes guidelines for state agencies on how to respond to federal immigration raids in public facilities. The executive order prohibits the use of state property as staging areas, processing centers, or bases of operations for federal activities related to civil immigration. It also requires state agencies to verify that federal agents have valid search or warrants before entering state facilities. The state will also develop an information portal called “Know Your Rights,” intended to guide residents on interactions with federal immigration authorities.

ABC 7 Richmond [5/20/2026 3:32 PM, Nick Minock, 34146K] reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is calling on Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and local officials to honor an ICE detainer and not release Jorge Enrique Garcia-Rodriguez. DHS said Garcia-Rodriguez is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and police in Franklin County, Virginia, arrested and charged him with one felony count of forcible intercourse with a victim under the age of 13. DHS says that according to local reporting, he was then charged on May 1, 2026, with six felony counts of possession of child pornography. After his initial arrest on April 2, ICE lodged a detainer asking officials in Franklin County to not release Garcia-Rodriguez from jail. “This sicko has been charged with forcible intercourse with a child and SIX counts of possession of child pornography,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “ICE is asking Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger to commit to not releasing this pedophile from jail and agree to turn him over to ICE. Governor Spanberger’s sanctuary policies have turned Virginia into a magnet for illegal alien crime."

Univision [5/20/2026 6:02 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports an emotional reunion marked the return home of Liliana Navarrete, a Colombian mother who was detained for more than two months by immigration authorities after going to a routine appointment to review her asylum case. Liliana was arrested with Ricardo during an immigration appointment related to her asylum process. During his time in federal custody, both were separated and transferred to different detention centers, including facilities in Kentucky. After regaining her freedom, the Colombian mother expressed relief for seeing her family again, although she acknowledged that she continues to live in distress over the situation of her son. “Thanking God first, but I feel incomplete because my son Ricardo is missing,” Liliana said. “It’s an uncertainty, but trusting God he’s going to be with us so we can continue to share as a family.” On Tuesday night, May 19, Liliana began her return trip from Kentucky to Crown Point, Indiana, where the long-awaited family reunion finally occurred. Kristy Morrow, who organized a fundraiser and helped the family during the legal process, was also present during the reunion.

Reported similarly:
CBS Chicago [5/20/2026 6:25 PM, Sabrina Franza, 51110K]
Univision Chicago WGBO [5/19/2026 6:12 PM, Staff, 4937K] r

CBS News [5/20/2026 9:27 PM, Anne Bryson, Joe Walsh, 51110K] reports a Democratic House candidate in Texas is facing widespread condemnation and accusations of antisemitism from both parties for comments she posted on social media, including a pledge to turn an immigration detention facility into a "prison for American Zionists" if elected — drawing allegations from top Democrats that her campaign may be backed by conservative groups. Maureen Galindo is running against Johnny Garcia in next week’s Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, which covers parts of San Antonio and the surrounding areas. Republicans are angling to pick up the seat, which is currently held by a Democrat but was made much more favorable to the GOP in Texas’ redistricting effort last summer. In an Instagram post last week, Galindo wrote that she will "turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists)." Galindo wrote in the same post — referring to herself in the third person — that "when Maureen gets into Congress, she’ll write legislation so that all Zionism and support of Zionism is undoubtedly Anti-Semitic, since it’s Zionists harming the Semites." Her social media feed also includes attacks on "billionaire Zionists," and a suggestion that "Zionist associated candidates and politicians" deserve "treason trials." Galindo has denied that she is antisemitic, instead saying she is opposed to "Zionist Jews." The comments have drawn stiff criticism from Texas Democrats, with Garcia calling them "conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric" and gubernatorial candidate James Talarico telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he would not campaign with Galindo. Republican Carlos De La Cruz, who is facing off against state Rep. John Lujan in the GOP primary, wrote on X: "This rhetoric is disgusting and has no place in Texas." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement that Galindo’s comments were "extremely dangerous" and "vile," and have "no place in Democratic politics." Many Democrats have also alleged that Galindo has been propped up by conservative funders. They point to Lead Left PAC, a political action committee founded less than a month ago that has reported more than $800,000 in pro-Galindo and anti-Garcia spending, according to recent Federal Election Commission filings. Lead Left PAC identifies itself as an anti-Trump organization, and its donors are not public. But Punchbowl News reported earlier this month that its website contained metadata linking it to WinRed, a digital fundraising platform used by Republican candidates and GOP-aligned groups. New York Times also raised questions about whether Lead Left PAC is linked to Republicans. (CBS News has not independently confirmed that reporting.) "House Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy, pull spending in the race and forcefully condemn these comments," Jeffries and DelBene said in their statement condemning Galindo’s comments.

Reported similarly:
Daily Caller [5/20/2026 10:51 AM, Christine Sellers, 803K]

CBS News [5/20/2026 7:37 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 51110K] Video: HERE reports an active-duty U.S. Army soldier and Afghanistan war veteran told CBS News he still worries about the possibility his newly freed wife could be deported to a country where she has no ties, putting at risk his decadeslong career in the American military. Sgt. 1st Class Jose Serrano, who was deployed to Afghanistan three times, said he’s now seeking to delay his planned retirement, after 27 years in the military, to be able to pay the legal fees for his wife’s immigration case and make preparations in the event she’s deported. "My wife can be deported at any moment," Serrano told CBS News during an exclusive interview alongside his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega. Rivera Ortega, a native of El Salvador, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in mid-April during an immigration appointment in El Paso, an arrest the Department of Homeland Security said stemmed from a deportation order she received in 2019 and her illegal entry to the U.S. over a decade ago. After a month in detention, Rivera Ortega was released last week. The release came after CBS News reported on her arrest and brought it to the attention of White House border czar Tom Homan, who promised to look into it during an interview earlier this month. It also followed a personal call that Illinois Democratic Senator and combat veteran Tammy Duckworth made to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin seeking Rivera Ortega’s release. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision [5/20/2026 8:34 AM, Staff, 4937K] reports Ana Delgado was separated from her two minor children, both U.S. citizens, who remain in Texas with their father and grandmother, after she was deported to Venezuela. “I still can’t understand it, my children are small,” she commented. Delgado was detained on April 29 during a routine immigration appointment, she said. From that moment, she was transferred to various detention centers in the United States until she was deported last Friday. The mother says the separation has been devastating for her and her children. According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, more than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have experienced the detention of at least one of their parents since the beginning of the current presidential term in the United States. The majority of the affected children are U.S. citizens. Delgado was later transferred to the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona before her deportation. In 2023, she had initiated an I-130 immigration process after marrying a U.S. citizen, which was still pending, and she had also held Temporary Protected Status. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [5/20/2026 8:55 PM, Greg Wehner, 37576K] reports an Arizona man is facing federal charges after prosecutors said he vandalized and attempted to set fire to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility by using a propane tank and torch to ignite materials inside the building. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said Gerardo Mendoza-Acoltzi of Avondale was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of malicious damage to federal property and willful depredation against property of the United States. Court documents claim Mendoza-Acoltzi broke a window at the ICE property before attempting to ignite the building just after 1 a.m. on Feb. 21, 2026. Federal authorities said surveillance video showed Mendoza-Acoltzi arriving at the facility shortly before midnight and unloading a propane tank near the front entrance. Prosecutors said he later returned, smashed a lobby window with the propane tank and used a torch connected to the tank to ignite window shades inside the building. Investigators also alleged Mendoza-Acoltzi arranged rocks outside the facility to spell an anti-ICE message before leaving the area. Federal prosecutors said Mendoza-Acoltzi was arrested May 7 and made his initial appearance in federal court shortly afterward. Fox News previously reported that the FBI was investigating "significant criminal damage" at the federal ICE warehouse facility after vandals targeted the property with anti-law enforcement graffiti and damaged windows. If convicted, Mendoza-Acoltzi could face years in federal prison. Attempted arson of federal property carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years behind bars, while depredation against U.S. property also carries additional penalties. Federal officials have increasingly warned about threats and attacks targeting immigration enforcement facilities and personnel amid heightened tensions surrounding border security and deportation operations. The Arizona case comes amid heightened concerns over threats targeting immigration enforcement and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities nationwide. Days before the Arizona incident, state and federal authorities launched an investigation into an attempted arson attack at a DHS office building in Meridian, Idaho. The suspect allegedly stole an ambulance from a bay at St. Luke’s West hospital, drove it through a parking lot and retrieved gas cans that had been staged in nearby vegetation, according to Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea. The suspect then drove the ambulance into the North Portico building, which houses DHS offices, Basterrechea said at the time. Investigators believe the suspect poured an accelerant inside and around the outside of the ambulance but was unable to ignite it before being interrupted by responding officers. "There has been a lot of rhetoric surrounding the Department of Homeland Security leasing office space at this location," Basterrechea said. "Comments on social media, such as ‘property damage isn’t violence,’ is absolutely false. This was absolutely an act of violence, and if the suspect had not been interrupted, there is no doubt this building would have been burned, putting the lives of first responders and others at risk."

Univision [5/20/2026 6:28 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports three Democratic members of Arizona’s Congress are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security explain what motivated immigration officials to pepper spray in February on several dozen immigration detainees waiting for ICE deportation flights at a detention center at Mesa Gateway Airport. The three lawmakers, Reps. Greg Stanton, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva, said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that they were "deeply concerned" about the news about the Feb. 27 incident, which was first released May 13 by the Arizona Mirror. The incident, revealed in the recording of a 911 call, prompted a response for hazardous materials, affected between 20 and 30 detainees and sent a man who appeared to be suffering a seizure to the hospital, according to the 911 call and copies of the dispatch report released through a request for access to public records. "I have a security issue with an ICE agent here, pepper spray was used and we have a person who needs to be examined. I have a particular person who appears to be suffering from a seizure," an ICE agent said in the 911 call. An ICE spokesman said officers deployed "capsicum’s oleoresin" to a group of detainees at the center "after repeated verbal orders that they stop kicking the cell door, knocking on the windows and exhibiting aggressive behavior towards officers." The detainee transferred to the hospital suffered an "episode of asthma" and "there is no evidence to suggest" that the asthma episode was caused by exposure to pepper spray, taking into account the pre-existing medical condition of the detainee," Fernando X said. Burgos, ICE spokesperson. In their letter, the three lawmakers wrote: We are concerned that this incident will be framed in a broader national trend of widespread use of physical force and chemical agents within ICE detention centers across the country. The revelation "continues a disturbing pattern of unsafe practices" at an ICE temporary detention facility in Mesa Gateway called the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, according to the letter. During a surprise nightly visit to the facility in April, the three lawmakers “first-hand witnessed severe overcrowding, insufficient hygiene facilities and lack of medical personnel,” the letter says. In their letter, also addressed to the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, the three lawmakers are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provide reports and surveillance recordings of the incident.

FOX News [5/20/2026 5:06 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports an illegal alien living in California who used his underage niece with special needs and his nephew to produce child pornography was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison. Angel Emilio Rodriguez-Marroquin, a Guatemalan citizen, initially pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) that featured his own niece and nephew, both 8, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said. Rodriguez-Marroquin was arrested on Nov. 22, 2025, by federal authorities on suspicion of production of child pornography and possession of child pornography. In addition to his conviction in the U.S., he is also the subject of a child exploitation investigation in Guatemala, which is being led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Rodriguez-Marroquin first illegally entered the U.S. in 2024 and was released by the Biden administration, DHS said. The Trump administration has blamed Biden immigration policies for the influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S., which led to a surge in crime.

FOX News [5/20/2026 9:54 PM, Bonny Chu, 37576K] reports an illegal immigrant truck driver was arrested Tuesday after allegedly causing a deadly multi-vehicle crash in California and attempting to flee the scene, federal officials said. The undocumented immigrant from India, Manvir Singh, instantly killed two people near Lodi, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleged. Singh, who faces multiple charges, reportedly entered the U.S. illegally through Arizona in 2023 and was later released by the Biden administration, federal officials told Fox News. His arrest also marks the fourth illegal immigrant truck driver with the last name "Singh" accused in a fatal crash since last year, DHS said, highlighting what officials described as a growing trend involving illegal immigrant commercial drivers from India. "Allowing illegal aliens, many of whom do not know English, to obtain CDLs to operate 18-wheelers and transport hazardous materials on America’s roads is reckless and incredibly dangerous to public safety," officials said. Around 12:20 p.m., Singh reportedly skidded off a road and struck a guardrail, triggering a crash involving three other vehicles, according to Legal Advocate, citing the California Highway Patrol. He then attempted to flee the wreckage on foot before officials with the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office were able to apprehend him, officials said. Singh faces multiple charges, including vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, hit-and-run resulting in death or injury and resisting or obstructing a police officer, DHS said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also lodged a detainer request, asking California authorities to hold the suspect for transfer into federal custody. "This criminal illegal alien from India should never have been behind the wheel of a semi-truck and allowed to kill two innocent people in a multi-vehicle crash in California," Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. "This is yet another example of why illegal aliens should not be operating trucks on American highways. We need Congress to pass Dalilah’s Law to prohibit states from granting illegal aliens commercial driver’s licenses.” Dalilah’s Law is a proposed federal measure that would bar states from issuing commercial driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. It is named after Dalilah Coleman, a young girl who suffered life-changing injuries in a 2024 crash in California allegedly caused by an illegal immigrant driver. Tuesday’s crash marks just one of several recent incidents involving illegal immigrant truck drivers accused of deadly crashes, officials said.

The Hill [5/20/2026 10:20 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that requires banks to more closely examine the citizenship status of its customers, as his administration works to uphold a campaign promise to crack down on those living in the country illegally. The order directs the Treasury Department to issue formal advisories to financial institutions outlining “red flags” to watch for. Those include payroll tax evasion, attempts to conceal identity, the “strategic use” of unregistered money services businesses or third-party payment platforms, labor trafficking or forced labor and the use of individual taxpayer identification numbers to obtain credit or open accounts. “My Administration will not tolerate national security and public safety risks caused by illicit cross-border financial activity, nor will it permit risks to our financial system posed by the extension of credit or financial services to the inadmissible and removable alien population,” the order states. Tax experts said immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipients, and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status would be largely affected by the planned change. The order, however, stopped short of a controversial proposal that would have required banks to collect citizenship information. The Trump administration floated the idea earlier this year, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling Semafor as recently as April that the plan was “in process.” “And I don’t think it’s unreasonable, because: Why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system?” Bessent said. “I have a place in the U.K.; they want to know who lives in every apartment. And how do we know that it’s not part of a foreign terrorist organization?”

CBS News [5/20/2026 6:27 PM, Marissa Armas, 51110K] Video: HERE reports visa issues may prevent some international soccer fans from attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Dallas and other U.S. host cities. With only three weeks until kickoff, immigration attorney Tessy Ortiz said strict policies and long processing times are creating uncertainty for travelers. "I think some of them are not going to be able to enter. They are going to stay with their tickets – maybe they will have to sell them," Ortiz said. "Some of them are going to be denied entry at the port of entry, because having the visa does not guarantee the entry.” Many visitors still need a B1/B2 tourist visa, even for the World Cup. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of State launched the FIFA Priority Scheduling System, known as FIFA Pass, to give fans who bought tickets directly from FIFA access to faster interview appointments. But an interview does not guarantee approval. "People are worried about not being able to get it on time, and people are also worried about, ‘Should I go or not? I don’t want to lose my visa,’" Ortiz said. "People are afraid to travel to the U.S., even with their visas approved. They are afraid.” Fans who purchased tickets through resale platforms such as StubHub are not eligible for FIFA Pass, Ortiz said, which could mean even longer delays. U.S. Department of State deputy spokesperson Mignon Houston said the restrictions.

NPR [5/20/2026 2:58 PM, Daniel Estrin, 28764K] reports that the U.S. is threatening to revoke the visas of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations unless the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N. withdraws his run for vice president of the General Assembly. A U.S. State Department cable issued Tuesday and obtained by NPR instructs U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem to pressure Palestinian officials this week to withdraw their bid for one of the 21 vice president roles at the U.N., or face possible consequences including visa revocation. The May 19 U.S. cable, marked sensitive but unclassified, says Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour "has a history of accusing Israel of genocide," and that his bid "fuels tension" and undermines President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. "A bully pulpit for Mansour would not improve the lives of Palestinians and would significantly damage U.S. relations with the PA [Palestinian Authority]. Congress will take it extremely seriously," the cable says. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ office declined comment. "It would be unfortunate," the U.S. cable says in a threat to revoke visas. Ahead of last year’s U.N. General Assembly in New York, the Trump Administration made the rare move of denying U.S. visas to top Palestinian officials including President Abbas. But the U.S. did not revoke visas for the Palestinian delegation to the U.N. A former U.S. diplomat calls visa revocation "counterproductive"

FOX News [5/20/2026 2:41 PM, Charles Creitz, 37576K] reports that President Donald Trump split with immigration hawks by defending Chinese students in the U.S. while also softening on Chinese-owned farmland — creating friction inside MAGA and unexpected overlap with moderate Democrats. Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked Trump in a recent interview from Beijing about concerns surrounding Chinese nationals attending school in the U.S. and China-linked entities purchasing farmland, including in sensitive areas like near a North Dakota military base that raised eyebrows earlier this decade. Republicans have long warned that Chinese student visa programs could expose U.S. research and state secrets to the Chinese Communist Party, while GOP officials like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer have pushed for tougher restrictions on Chinese ownership of American farmland. "It’s not that I love it. You want to see farm prices drop; you want to see farmers lose a lot of money just take that out of the market. But they’ve had a lot of land for a long time. Obama did nothing about it," Trump said. Trump also defended allowing Chinese students to study in the U.S., calling them "good students" and arguing that banning them would unnecessarily inflame tensions with Beijing. "I frankly think that it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture and many of them want to stay here," Trump said, while admitting that it "doesn’t sound like a very conservative position – and I’m a conservative… commonsense guy. I think MAGA is ‘common sense,’" he said. The comments triggered backlash from the right wing of the MAGA movement, with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene disputing, "No — that’s not commonsense."

Univision [5/20/2026 6:58 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the apparent calm in which thousands of asylum seekers lived. In a scenario of constant immigration pressure, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ratified a strict position that directly impacts the immigrant community that seeks to regularize its situation legally: having a pending asylum process does not confer immunity against arrests or stop the expulsion machinery from the country. The confirmation came in writing to the N+Univision newsroom after a consultation of journalist Jorge Cancino to the Department of Homeland Security. The official opinion establishes that if a person enters with a visa, remains in the country beyond the authorized time and his process is still under review, he is in an irregular stay situation and, therefore, is eligible to be detained. The immigration lawyer and legal advisor of TelevisaUnivision, Armando Olmedo, analyzed this panorama with the presenter Raúl Peimbert. During the meeting, Olmedo warned that the measure breaks with a historic practice of procedural tolerance, where the government itself took responsibility for bureaucratic delays while granting work permits and state identifications. "The pending asylum does not grant status in the United States," was the first thing to clarify Olmedo. “The news is important in the sense that ICE is now arresting immigrants who legally entered the United States on a visa, asked for asylum and are being arrested ... the fact that a person has a pending asylum does not give status to a person and that person can be subject to detention,” Olmedo said. Currently, the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) accumulates a historic lag of 1.4 million asylum cases. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Univision [5/20/2026 5:49 PM, Jorge Cancino, 4937K]

Chicago Tribune [5/20/2026 7:08 PM, Allison Kiehl, 5209K] reports for Joabe Barbosa, his Chicago run is not over just yet. The Brazilian native, 25, who has gained notoriety for his mission to run through every street and neighborhood in the city, was in danger of having to leave the country due to his visa status, as the Tribune first reported in early April. But the Guinness World Record holder, who lives in Chicago on an F-1 student visa, was offered another path to stay from Roosevelt University, the school where he is working toward his doctoral degree in clinical psychology. “It feels fantastic to get so much support and so much love,” Barbosa said. Barbosa’s status was in flux after he did not match in a clinical internship program, the essential next step toward his degree. While Barbosa’s visa is valid through 2027, F-1 visa holders who are not in class are required to leave the country within 60 days of their program ending, regardless of the expiration date of the visa, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website. To fulfill the needed school requirement for his visa, Barbosa will continue in unpaid training programs for his doctoral degree, teaching two undergraduate courses at Roosevelt University and taking a zero-credit-hour course. “My university helped connect me with a lot of different opportunities to be able to stay,” Barbosa said. “It was truly a team effort, and I am proud that those at RU were able to find alternative ways to continue to support Joabe,” said Dr. Courtney Kibble, psychology program director and clinical assistant professor at Roosevelt University. Barbosa said he plans to reapply for clinical internship opportunities next year. However, in the meantime, the zero-credit-hour course means Barbosa can keep his student visa without having to pay for credit hours, which cost upward of $1,000, according to Roosevelt University. The financial burden of classes is more complicated than navigating the visa process itself, according to Barbosa.

Daily Wire [5/20/2026 12:26 PM, Jennie Taer, 2314K] reports Andre, his wife, and their six-year-old son were approved to leave South Africa and come to the United States as refugees more than 200 days ago. “Literally three days before departure, they cancelled the tickets and said don’t make any drastic changes. That was too late, we were already totally committed for the program,” Andre, who requested that his full name be withheld due to threats, told The Daily Wire. “We gave away everything … we basically used up all our savings, we are close to being on the street,” he said. Andre’s story is just one of many Afrikaners — South Africa’s white population — who were approved to come to the United States as refugees escaping racial persecution, received airline tickets, and then had their trips cancelled. The Daily Wire spoke with several approved refugees who remain stuck in South Africa, with no answers. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 to allow Afrikaners, “who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” into the United States as refugees and to prioritize their admissions. All the while, Trump cut total annual refugee admissions from 125,000 to 7,500. Trump is said to be considering increasing the annual refugee cap to 17,500 to support more white Afrikaners, CNN reported Monday. It’s not clear if that would help the many Afrikaners who are stuck in limbo. Afrikaners are an ethnic minority in South Africa who descended from Dutch and French Huguenot settlers. The Trump administration has said they’re victims of a racial genocide in South Africa.

CBS News [5/20/2026 8:48 PM, Faris Tanyos, Nicole Sganga, 51110K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is set to implement new entry restrictions beginning Thursday for foreign travelers coming to the United States from countries at the center of the latest Ebola outbreak. According to a draft of a new DHS rule scheduled to be published Thursday, all U.S.-bound flights carrying foreign travelers who have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan at any point in the previous 21 days will be required to fly into Washington-Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The arrival restrictions, issued at the direction of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, are designed to funnel those travelers to an airport "where the U.S. government is focusing public health resources to implement enhanced public health measures," the rule states. The rule applies only to passenger flights, DHS said, with cargo flights excluded from the restrictions. In a statement provided to CBS News, a DHS spokesperson confirmed the new travel requirements, saying that "to reduce the risk of the Ebola virus spreading," Customs and Border Protection is "enhancing public health screening, travel monitoring, and health protection response activities." The DHS spokesperson added that CBP was coordinating with "airlines, international partners and port-of-entry officials to identify and manage travelers who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus." In its rule, DHS did not disclose what kind of specific protocols foreign travelers will have to undergo upon arrival at Dulles. The move comes two days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued travel restrictions linked to the Ebola outbreak. The CDC announced Monday that people without U.S. passports who had traveled to Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past three weeks would be restricted from entering the country. It’s unclear how the new DHS rule impacts the CDC’s order. On May 15, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed an Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said Wednesday there are at least 600 suspected Ebola cases so far, included 139 suspected deaths from the virus. Ghebreyesus said the virus is believed to have been circulating for some time before it was detected. A U.S. doctor working with a missionary organization in Congo contracted Ebola and was transported to Germany for medical treatment, the U.S. CDC and his missionary group said Tuesday. At least six Americans were exposed to the virus, sources told CBS News Monday. Health officials say the new outbreak is linked to the Bundibugyo strain, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments, according to CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder. WHO has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, but says as of now it falls short of the criteria for a pandemic emergency. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS News [5/21/2026 3:02 AM, Faris Tanyos, 51110K] reports an Air France flight from Paris to Detroit was forced to divert to Montreal on Wednesday due to U.S. flight restrictions linked to the Ebola outbreak after it was determined that one of the passengers was from the Democratic Republic of Congo, federal officials and the airline said. Air France boarded the passenger "in error on a flight to the United States," a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told CBS News in a statement. "Due to entry restrictions put in place to reduce the risk of the Ebola virus, the passenger should not have boarded the plane," the CBP spokesperson said. "CBP took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveler from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal, Canada." CBP did not say when the person had last been in the Congo or whether they were showing symptoms of the virus. When reached about the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration directed CBS News to CBP. CBS News has also reached out to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for comment. Air France said in a statement to CBS News that it "confirms that, at the request of U.S. authorities, (the flight) was diverted to Montreal Airport after a Congolese passenger on board was denied entry into the United States. In fact, under new regulations, passengers arriving from certain countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, may only enter U.S. territory via Washington (IAD) Airport. There was no medical emergency on board, and like all airlines, Air France is required to comply with the entry requirements of the countries it serves." According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Air France Flight 378 from Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport landed at Montreal Trudeau International Airport at 5:15 p.m. ET. The status of the passenger from the Congo was unknown. Deborah Mistor, a business class passenger aboard the flight, told CBS News in an interview Thursday night that the rest of the passengers were then flown from Montreal to Detroit aboard the same aircraft. Mistor revealed that the passengers were notified by the captain about four hours before they were initially due to arrive in Detroit that U.S. authorities were not allowing the plane to land in the U.S. and the flight was being diverted. The captain did not provide a reason, however. "I think enough people must have been questioning what was going on because 30 minutes later, he came back on and said that he wanted to confirm that there was nothing wrong with the plane, there were no technical difficulties, that it was strictly because of U.S. authorities not allowing us to land in the U.S.," Mistor told CBS News. She said that all the flight attendants then put on face masks. "They’re telling you it’s OK, it’s not a mechanical issue, but everybody has a mask on," Mistor said. "Having a crew mask up when they were not informing us of what was going on is very concerning," she continued. "It lets your mind wander as to what the situation you’re being placed in might be." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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New York Post [5/21/2026 12:33 AM, Nicholas McEntyre, 40934K]
NBC News [5/21/2026 1:31 AM, Joe Kottke and Alex Lo, 42967K]
Newsweek [5/21/2026 3:58 AM, Jordan King, 52220K]

USA Today [5/20/2026 7:47 PM, Kathleen Wong and Josh Rivera, 70643K] reports that travelers returning to the United States from parts of Central and East Africa may have to make an unexpected stop at Washington Dulles International Airport. According to a Department of Homeland Security document scheduled to be published in the Federal Register, all flights carrying passengers who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda or South Sudan will be required to land at Dulles, where federal officials are concentrating enhanced public health screening measures in response to an Ebola outbreak in the region. The restrictions apply to flights departing after 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 20 and will remain in effect until further notice, according to DHS. The move comes after health officials confirmed an outbreak of Ebola disease caused by the Bundibugyo virus in northeastern Congo on May 15. Congo had reported 12 confirmed cases, 336 suspected cases and 88 deaths as of May 17, according to the document publishing on May 21. Uganda has also reported imported cases, while South Sudan is considered at high risk because of its proximity to affected areas and limited health care infrastructure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there are no confirmed cases of Ebola in the U.S. as of May 19, and the overall risk to the American public "remains low." DHS said directing all affected passengers to a single airport allows the U.S. government to focus medical and public health resources in one place. At Dulles, near Washington, DC, DHS and CDC officials can conduct enhanced screening and monitoring to help prevent the disease from entering the United States.

CNN [5/20/2026 4:35 PM, Davis Winkie, 19874K] reports a US military-owned surveillance blimp operated by Customs and Border Protection contractors near Laredo, Texas, broke free from its tether on Monday evening and later crashed in Mexico. The blimp did not carry a crew when in the air, and no ground personnel were injured in the incident. The 66-foot surveillance blimp’s tether cable, which secures the balloon to the ground, became tangled with other cables amid storms on Monday, a spokesperson for Joint Task Force-Southern Border, confirmed in a statement to CNN. The aircraft’s operators tried to untangle the cables, the spokesperson said, but the helium-filled blimp "became untethered" and floated away. The military declined to say which specific model of balloon was lost, only describing the aircraft as a "medium aerostat." The runaway balloon’s location was unknown until Mexico’s military discovered it "in a remote location … southwest of Laredo," according to the spokesperson. Mexican and US troops are coordinating to recover the aerostat.

Detroit Free Press [5/20/2026 10:22 AM, Sarah Moore, 4749K] reports Michigan residents traveling into Canada this Memorial Day weekend should expect delays at ports of entry due to holiday traffic, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said this week. "U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations reminds travelers planning trips across the Detroit, Port Huron and Sault Ste. Marie land border crossings to be prepared and to anticipate possible delays during the Memorial Day holiday (May 25)," CBP said in a May 18 press release. Having required documents ready, reporting larges sums of money and ensuring you aren’t traveling with prohibited items will quicken the process at the border, CBP officials said. Travelers are urged to visit CBP.gov/travel for information on wait times or advisories, travel documents and more.

Daily Caller [5/20/2026 4:35 PM, Mark Tanos, 803K] reports two Mexican brothers with methamphetamine trafficking records turned up among a group of illegal border crossers pulled out of a drainage tunnel system in California. Border Patrol agents at the Chula Vista Station arrested 19 people in San Diego on May 4, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a press release. The haul included 16 adults and three unaccompanied children. Each one was a Mexican national caught inside drainage tunnels near the southern border. Raudel Carrillo-Padilla, 35, and his 31-year-old brother Ivan Carrillo-Padilla were both flagged as repeat offenders, according to CBP. The pair had already been kicked out of the country once before, following 2017 convictions in Yreka, California, on charges of possessing, transporting, and intending to sell meth. Ivan was sent back to Mexico a second time after officers stopped him in a 2019 drug interdiction operation in Eugene, Oregon, the agency said.

Breitbart [5/20/2026 8:12 AM, Randy Clark, 2238K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations officers (AMO) worked with the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents to interdict a maritime smuggling event off the western coast of Puerto Rico. The operation resulted in the apprehension of 64 illegal aliens attempting to make landfall on the island. According to CBP, the interdiction occurred on Saturday, May 9, and began when the AMO Maceda Marine Unit detected a suspected illegal alien smuggling scheme involving a "Yola-type" marine vessel. A yola is a wooden vessel made by hand that is generally used for fishing off the coasts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. During this marine interdiction event, AMO agents boarded the vessel and discovered 58 Dominican Republic nationals were on board the vessel, as well as six nationals from Haiti. The arrestees were transferred onto AMO and Puerto Rico Joint Forces FURA vessels for transport. According to CBP, the detainees were transported to the Mayaguez Port of Entry. Border Patrol agents, with support from HSI and PRPD, processed the group at the Ramey Border Patrol Station for removal proceedings. The Caribbean Air and Marine Branch Director, Christopher Hunter, commented on the interdiction, saying, "This interdiction underscores the relentless commitment of our agents and partners to securing our maritime borders and protecting lives."

Newsweek [5/20/2026 9:19 AM, Amanda Greenwood, 37576K] reports Canadians heading to the United States for Memorial Day weekend are being warned to prepare for long waits, heavy traffic and tighter border screening as millions of travelers hit the roads for one of the busiest holiday periods of the year. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says crossings at Detroit, Port Huron and Sault Ste. Marie are expected to experience significant congestion, with delays likely throughout the long weekend. The warning comes as Memorial Day travel is projected to hit record levels. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates around 45 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles between May 21 and May 25, with more than 39 million driving. That surge is expected to spill over into border crossings, compounding delays for Canadians heading into the U.S.

New York Post [5/20/2026 1:29 PM, Ryan King, 40934K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security is coming under pressure to sequester shipments of Labubu dolls coming into the US due to forced labor concerns. A test found that 16 of 20 of Pop Mart’s plush monster toys were comprised of some cotton from Xinjiang, where China is accused of carrying out human rights violations against the Muslim Uyghur population. The heads of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and State Armor, both China hawk groups, urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to stop imports of those products in response. "The forced labor system that feeds Pop Mart’s supply chain is setting records. In 2025 alone, Chinese authorities carried out 3.36 million ‘labor transfers,’" the heads of the two groups wrote to Mullin and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. "Worker consent is rendered structurally impossible by the system’s design," they added. "The scale of Pop Mart’s U.S. market makes the urgency acute. Pop Mart has announced plans to expand its U.S. retail footprint and membership base." The test identifying the ties to Xinjiang was commissioned by the Campaign for Uyghurs. The New York Times later confirmed the results independently. The US bans imports from Xinjiang, a region also known as East Turkistan, due to alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim population, including accusations of internment camps, sterilization, forced labor, and more. State Department officials have classified the alleged human rights abuses there as genocide.

NPR [5/21/2026 5:00 AM, Bill Chappell, 34837K] reports federal officers handle security screening at all but a small fraction of U.S. airports, but the Trump administration is hoping to change that. Under the Transportation Security Administration’s new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades. The TSA is set to host officials from airports and security contractors to an "industry day" at its Springfield, Va., headquarters on Thursday, as it looks to develop TSA Gold+, a public-private program that the agency calls "transformative." The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers. "TSA Gold+ marks a significant evolution in the agency’s approach to aviation security," a TSA spokesperson told NPR via an emailed statement. The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding. It also says the program would bring "the latest technology" such as AI tools to airport screening operations, to increase capacity and cut wait times, although the agency did not specify how those gains would be achieved. From the details shared so far, the equipment would be the contractors’ responsibility — a departure from the current SPP system, in which TSA controls the equipment and oversees the security contract. The TSA says it would perform the oversight role it currently does.

AP [5/20/2026 6:06 PM, Mae Anderson] reports a House committee on Wednesday expressed bipartisan support for ensuring Transportation Security Administration officers get paid during future government shutdowns and are equipped with the latest technology, discussing the agency’s future as the Trump administration lobbies to make airport screening a job for private contractors. Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing on ways to modernize the TSA nearly 25 years after it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But the morale of TSA officers who went without pay during three funding lapses since Oct. 1, and whom the administration wants to replace at small U.S. airports, overshadowed the talk about better machines and reliable funding. Several other committee members noted that Congress has failed to pass any of the pending bills seeking to guarantee continued pay for TSA workers. Correa also took aim at President Donald Trump’s proposed budget, which in addition to spending $477.3 million to have private companies take over airport screening at about 250 smaller airports would cut more than 4,500 TSA positions to save $529.3 million in compensation and benefits. The TSA this week also authorized contractors in its airport staffing program to acquire and maintain screening equipment, which previously was strictly a government function. About 20 U.S. airports already staff their checkpoints through the Screening Partnership Program. Currently airports choose whether or not to opt in. Under Trump’s proposed budget, smaller airports would be required to participate.

New York Times [5/20/2026 5:00 PM, Christine Chung, 148038K] reports in what industry experts call an about-face for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency is ramping up efforts to privatize security at U.S. airports. The recent government shutdowns, which left T.S.A. agents unpaid for months and led to long lines, have fueled a push to expand the Screening Partnership Program, which uses private contractors to staff security checkpoints, and to roll out a new voluntary public-private screening initiative called Gold+. Twenty airports, including San Francisco International, currently participate in the Screening Partnership Program. The T.S.A. seeks to spend an extra $477 million to allow smaller airports to join the Screening Partnership Program, according to its proposed budget, which also calls for eliminating more than 4,300 of its roughly 50,000 agents. Separately, the T.S.A. also recently introduced an expansion of this program to allow private contractors to deploy and manage screening equipment at checkpoints. Details are scant about Gold+, which the agency announced to staff last week in a mass email that was first reported by the Gate Access newsletter. The email, obtained by The New York Times, states that the program would “enable closer collaboration with the private sector” and would be put in place “thoughtfully and in phases.” Another document, sent to top T.S.A. leaders at airports, estimates the transition to Gold+ could take seven to 11 months. Neither the emails nor the Gold+ website provided specific information about airports, vendors or funding, but a T.S.A. spokesperson said Gold+ would be an “evolution of the Screening Partnership Program” tailored to airports and regulated by the T.S.A. Participating airports would get staffing, technology and maintenance at no additional cost to them, the website said. Privatization emerged on Wednesday as a central focus of a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on T.S.A. modernization.

The Hill [5/20/2026 4:18 PM, Addy Bink, 18170K] reports flying with marijuana has long been complicated, but a quiet update from TSA may make it slightly easier. Officials with TSA previously explained to Nexstar that its agents are “focused on detecting security threats and protecting the nation’s transportation system,” not necessarily marijuana or other drugs. Officers are not trained to search for drugs but are required to report them if they find them during the screening process. Local law enforcement will then decide what steps, if any, are taken, a spokesperson explained.

CBS News [5/20/2026 6:18 PM, Daniel Wilkerson, 51110K] reports a former Transportation Security Administration officer with ties to current Atlanta TSA workers said many workers are concerned about losing federal benefits and long-term job security after Atlanta leaders approved a plan to study privatized passenger screening at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Earlier this week, the Atlanta City Council approved a resolution requesting a feasibility study into whether the city’s airport should move to a privatized screening model under TSA’s Screening Partnership Program. The proposal comes after long TSA lines during recent federal shutdowns created major disruptions for travelers in Atlanta. Councilman Antonio Lewis, who supports the study, said the issue gained urgency after travelers faced hours-long waits during the shutdown-related staffing shortages. "With the last government shutdown… we at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had lines for hours," Lewis said. Under the proposal, private screeners would still operate under TSA oversight and follow federal TSA security standards. Similar programs already operate at about 20 airports across the country, including San Francisco International Airport. CBS News transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave said airports across the country are now reevaluating how shutdowns impact airport operations and travelers. "You can’t ask people to go to work for weeks on end without pay," Van Cleave said. "And fliers shouldn’t go to the airport and play shutdown roulette.” If Atlanta eventually moves forward with the idea, Hartsfield-Jackson would become the largest airport in the country using privatized passenger screening. Former TSA officer Caleb Harmon Marshall, who said he remains in contact with current TSA officers in Atlanta, told CBS News Atlanta that many workers are opposed to privatization. He said many TSA officers want to remain federal employees under the Department of Homeland Security.

ABC News [5/20/2026 3:22 PM, Bill Hutchinson, 34146K] reports fueled by gusting winds and warm temperatures, multiple large wildfires continued to menace Southern California on Wednesday, prompting thousands of residents to evacuate, authorities said. As of Wednesday morning, the five largest wildfires had burned nearly 22,000 acres from Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The most evacuations were being prompted by the Sandy Fire, which ignited on Monday in the foothills above Semi Valley. At one point on Tuesday evening, more than 43,700 people were under mandatory evacuation orders or evacuation warnings, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. The wildfire had grown to 1,698 acres by Wednesday morning and was 15% contained, according to Cal Fire. Firefighters quickly attacked the blaze from the ground and the air as flames raced downhill in the direction of populated neighborhoods, officials said. As of Wednesday morning, only one structure had been destroyed by the fire, but many evacuation orders remained in place, according to officials. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. In Southern California’s Riverside County, the Bain Fire was threatening homes in the Santa Ana River bottom in Jurupa Valley, according to Cal Fire. Overnight, the Bain Fire grew to 1,456 acres and was 25% contained, Cal Fire said in an update on Wednesday afternoon. While no structures were reported lost, Los Angeles ABC station KABC reported that three people suffered smoke inhalation and a fourth was taken to a hospital with traumatic injuries. As firefighters were responding to the Bain Fire, another wildfire ignited nearby in Riverside County, prompting more evacuation orders and warnings, according to Cal Fire. The Verona Fire in the unincorporated communities of Green Acres and Homeland had grown to 500 acres on Wednesday morning and was 5% contained, Cal Fire reported. Residents in the area told KABC that three to four homes had been destroyed by the blaze. The largest fire burning in Southern California is the Santa Rosa Island Fire in the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara County. While the fire remains under investigation, the U.S. Coast Guard said it was likely ignited by emergency flares fired by a 67-year-old shipwrecked mariner on the island. The Coast Guard posted a photo on social media showing the stranded sailor standing near a patch of blackened brush in which he had scratched "SOS" in the dirt. The wildfire at last word was 26% contained after growing to nearly 17,000 acres, according to Cal Fire. The Tusil Fire, burning in San Diego County, had spread to 1,000 acres and had also forced evacuations on the Campo Reservation, according to Cal Fire. The wildfire, which started on Tuesday, was 25% contained as of Wednesday. At least one structure was damaged by the fire, which also shut down the Interstate 8 freeway in both directions in the fire zone on Wednesday, according to Cal Fire. One structure was damaged by the fire and some evacuation orders remain in effect, according to Cal Fire.

CBS Chicago [5/20/2026 6:47 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE reports six new wildfires have erupted in the pas day in southern California, including two that are burning in Riverside County, even as the Sandy Fire, which ignited near Los Angeles on Monday, continues to spread in Simi Valley.

New York Times [5/20/2026 5:11 PM, Christina Morales, 148038K] reports one month before the beginning of peak wildfire season in California, firefighters are already battling more than eight blazes in the southern part of the state. The fires have prompted smoke advisories in Los Angeles, led to evacuation orders for thousands of people in surrounding areas and put many people on edge less than 18 months since two devastating infernos in the region. Dry conditions in recent months, a spring heat wave and a spell of fierce winds have all combined to make Southern California more susceptible to rapid spreading and major damage. The Sandy fire in Simi Valley, a suburban community about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, has prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people in Ventura County since Monday, though activity has slowed. It was about 15 percent contained on Wednesday, having spread to roughly 1,700 acres, and more than 850 firefighters continue working on it. This fire, burning off the coast of California on Santa Rosa Island, is the largest active blaze and has increased to nearly 17,000 acres. Less than 30 percent of it has been contained. The Bain fire was burning primarily south of the Santa Ana River near the cities of Riverside and Jurupa Valley, about 50 miles east from Los Angeles. It spread quickly after it was first reported on Tuesday, ballooning to nearly 1,400 acres and leading to evacuation orders and warnings for more than 39,000 people. Four civilians were taken to hospitals, including one with a trauma injury. About 100 firefighters were battling the blaze, which was 25 percent contained. Residents in Riverside County, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, were also dealing with evacuations and warnings from the Verona fire. That fire, which has burned 500 acres about 40 miles southeast of the city of Riverside, is about 5 percent contained.

New York Times [5/20/2026 9:49 AM, Francesca Regalado, 148038K] reports tens of thousands of people were under evacuation warnings or orders in an area east of Los Angeles early Wednesday, as two wildfires spread under gusty winds and dry conditions, the authorities said. Four people were injured and about 7,200 others were forced to evacuate on Tuesday to avoid the larger of the two blazes in Riverside County, according to Capt. John Clingingsmith Jr., a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Riverside. Firefighters were still investigating the cause of the fires, known as the Bain fire and the Verona fire, Capt. Clingingsmith said on Tuesday night. More than 39,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings as a result of the larger Bain fire, he added. The Bain fire was burning primarily south of the Santa Ana River near the cities of Jurupa Valley and Riverside. It was first reported on Tuesday morning and had grown to 1,375 acres by the evening, according to Cal Fire. About 100 firefighters were battling the blaze, which was 10 percent contained.

Univision [5/21/2026 12:26 AM, Staff, 4937K] reports evacuation warnings and air quality alerts remain in effect this Wednesday, May 20, in areas of Ventura and Los Angeles County due to the advance of the Sandy Fire , which has consumed 2,115 acres and was 22% contained as of 7:14 p.m. , according to the official report from CAL FIRE . The fight involves 859 firefighters with 106 engines , 8 bulldozers and air support . The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) maintains active evacuation warnings (level 2) in areas identified in Genasys as LFD-0295, LFD-0343, LFD-0405, LFD-0469 and LFD-0471 , in addition to other areas of Los Angeles County: AGO-C304, CAL-C401, CSB-U024, HID-C501, LAC-LAKEMANOR, LAC-WOOLSEY, MTV-U048 and WTH-U045 . In Ventura , mandatory evacuation orders remain in place in areas such as Bell Canyon 01-05, Burro Flats 01, Cheseboro 01, Meier Canyon 01, Santa Susana 01-02 and several areas of Simi Valley (27, 28, 32-A, 33-A, 34 and 35). Warnings also remain in effect for Box Canyon 02-03 and Simi Valley 32-C and 33-B . Authorities recommend checking the status at protect.genasys.com and evacuating if the situation worsens. Among the designated spaces are Rancho Santa Susana Community Park for people, Simi Valley Animal Shelter and Camarillo Animal Shelter for small animals, as well as Ventura County Fairgrounds for large animals. Roads such as Bell Canyon Road , Katherine Road , and Santa Susana Pass Road remain closed . The South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health extended the smoke warning stemming from several wildfires, including the Sandy Fire , with reports of unhealthy air in parts of the Los Angeles Basin and smoke present from Simi Valley to the San Fernando Valley and coastal areas. The department noted that “ smoke from the Sandy Fire was expected to affect adjacent areas of Los Angeles County “ and urged residents to avoid unnecessary outdoor exposure, limit physical exertion , keep windows closed , and use air conditioning in recirculation mode . For vulnerable populations, especially children , the elderly , and those with respiratory illnesses, staying indoors is recommended. Wearing an N95 mask is also suggested if going out is essential. Due to the proximity of the fire to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory , CAL FIRE reported that air quality monitoring is being carried out in the perimeter of the fire. “ Due to the proximity of the fire to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory area, air quality monitoring is being conducted around the perimeter of the fire ,” the agency detailed, specifying that the fire has not crossed onto the laboratory property. Simi Valley Unified School District schools will remain closed until May 25 . Authorities urge residents to follow official information from CAL FIRE , Ventura County Emergency and LAFD , and to consult tools such as AirNow.gov to locate smoke and air conditions. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NBC News [5/20/2026 6:00 PM, Evan Bush, 42967K] reports after testing soil from about 1% of the homes burned down in the Eaton Fire, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said residents should feel assured that most properties cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers don’t have hazardous amounts of lead. At least one outside scientist is skeptical. The Eaton Fire destroyed 9,400 homes and structures in the Altadena area in January 2025 and sent smoke containing lead, arsenic and asbestos into the air and to settle nearby. Lead is a potent neurotoxin associated with developmental problems in children. The EPA tested 100 homes selected at random from the debris cleanup zone and found that only five lots exceeded EPA screening standards for lead, according to a report the EPA provided to NBC News. Seventeen lots exceeded California’s more stringent standards. Overall, the median concentration of lead across all of the properties was well below state and federal levels of concern, according to an EPA news release published Tuesday. Montgomery said the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the EPA to test to address concerns voiced by elected officials and residents. The EPA has not performed this kind of work on past wildfires, Montgomery said.

CBS Baltimore [5/20/2026 10:24 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard is promoting safe decision-making for National Safe Boating Week. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 10:11 PM, David Zimmermann, 1147K] reports a federal judge decided on Wednesday to keep the June 1 start date for the civil trial litigating a container ship’s collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge over two years ago in Baltimore. The civil trial is moving forward despite a recent federal indictment against an Indian national who worked on the cargo ship and two foreign companies that own and manage the Dali. They were charged with conspiracy, failing to report a known hazardous condition to the Coast Guard, obstruction, and making false statements. U.S. District Judge James Bredar of Maryland refused to postpone the civil trial at the request of the two companies involved in the case. He also rejected a federal prosecutor’s request to let the criminal case proceed before the civil case. "The right course, the best course, the most fair course, is to stay the course," Bredar said at a court hearing on Wednesday. Less than two weeks away, the civil trial will focus on whether the ship’s owner and manager are entitled to cap their financial liability or are subject to unlimited damages. The Dali lost power four times in the 10 hours before its collision with the bridge, which collapsed upon impact on March 26, 2024. The National Transportation Safety Board blamed a loose wire on the vessel. Six construction workers who were working on the bridge at the time were killed. Their lawyers asked Bredar to keep the trial on schedule. The companies’ attorneys argued that delaying the case until after the criminal trial would allow new witnesses to testify without the threat of prosecution. Employees of the two companies who might testify have said they will not travel to the United States for the trial because they fear being detained, like the nine Dali crew members who have been held in Baltimore indefinitely due to the legal proceedings and federal investigations. Separate from the upcoming trial, Maryland finalized its $2.25 billion settlement with the ship’s owner and operator earlier this month that resolves the state’s claims against the companies.

CNN [5/20/2026 6:12 PM, Kate S. Petersen, 19874K] reports a large wildfire has burned nearly a third of Santa Rosa Island in California’s Channel Islands National Park — an area home to dozens of rare plants and animals, including some found nowhere else in the world. The blaze ignited on Friday and has grown to nearly 17,000 acres as of Tuesday evening, making it the largest fire in the state this year, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is 26% contained. The fire has already claimed two historic structures on the island and forced the evacuation of 11 National Park employees on Sunday, according to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. The fire’s growth was more limited than previous days, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Officials say the fire is “human-caused” but still under investigation. Coast Guard Southwest District spokesperson Kenneth Wiese told CNN the investigation is being handled by the National Parks Service. The US Coast Guard responded to the fire on Friday and rescued a 67-year-old sailor whose boat crashed into rocks there, according to posts on social media. Photos provided to CNN by the Coast Guard show the man standing near the letters “SOS” carved into charred ground. On the mainland, multiple wildfires have prompted evacuations in Southern California.

USA Today [5/20/2026 12:39 PM, Brandi D. Addison and Daniella Segura, 70643K] reports when a fire broke out off the coast of California Friday, May 15, reports of a sailor being rescued from the burning island in the nick of time soon followed. However, now investigators are looking at whether the Santa Rosa Island Fire — currently the largest wildfire burning in the Golden State — may have been sparked by an SOS flare from that shipwrecked mariner stranded on the island. Initially, the U.S. Coast Guard wrote online that it suspects this may be the case, but later issued a correction in an edited post, saying: "The cause of the fire is under investigation.” In its online incident report, Cal Fire lists the cause of the Santa Barbara County blaze — which has grown to nearly 17,000 acres and was about 25% contained as of the evening of Tuesday, May 19 — as human. U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Ventura said a possible link is being reviewed after a 67-year-old man’s sailboat reportedly crashed into rocks near Santa Rosa Island on Friday, May 15. The man is believed to have fired emergency flares to signal for help, potentially igniting dry vegetation and sparking the wildfire. The Coast Guard shared photos showing the stranded man and his SOS signal on the island, along with images of the wildfire burning across the landscape. A Coast Guard crew rescued the uninjured man Saturday morning after he spent the night stranded on the island.

Bloomberg [5/20/2026 8:44 PM, Maggie Eastland, Oma Seddiq (BGOV) and Courtney Subramanian, 18082K] reports President Donald Trump is poised to issue an executive order as soon as Thursday aimed at bolstering artificial intelligence cybersecurity and has asked tech industry leaders to join for the event, according to people familiar with the matter. The order that Trump is expected to sign would revamp existing cybersecurity information-sharing programs to include AI companies while stopping short of mandatory federal approval of cutting-edge models, Bloomberg News has reported. Instead, it would call for voluntary government testing of frontier AI systems to find and patch weaknesses across federal, state and local networks, as well as critical US infrastructure, without requiring extensive new oversight. Invitations have been been sent to a range of technology industry executives for a signing event Thursday at the White House, the people said, though it’s unclear who will take part. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment on Wednesday evening. Spokespeople for top AI developers OpenAI and Anthropic PBC didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The directive is set to be signed about a month after Anthropic revealed that its breakthrough Mythos model was extraordinarily adept at finding network vulnerabilities and could pose a major cybersecurity risk. The company has limited Mythos access for now to a handful of large tech and Wall Street companies, amid broader global alarm about the new threats it could pose to critical systems. Trump administration officials have been pushing to make Mythos more widely available to federal agencies to test their networks for security flaws, and the National Security Agency has already been using it. White House officials recently rejected Anthropic’s plans to distribute Mythos to several dozen additional companies and organizations, citing security concerns. The US already runs a voluntary program to evaluate AI systems before their release, and the Commerce Department recently announced an expansion of that initiative. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and xAI Inc. have agreed to give the government access to their models to assess the systems’ capabilities and help improve security. OpenAI and Anthropic were already part of the program, led by the department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation. In addition to sharing its models with the Commerce Department for national security testing, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane confirmed the company is partnering with the White House and Trump administration on a deployment strategy for GPT-5.5-Cyber, which is designed to bolster cyber defense efforts.

Bloomberg [5/20/2026 10:00 AM, Dina Bass, 18082K] reports Socket, a cybersecurity startup that sells technology to help safeguard open-source code against hackers, has raised a new round of funding that values the company at $1 billion. Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital led the $60 million financing round in the startup, Socket is set to announce Wednesday. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Abstract Ventures participated alongside new backer Capital One Ventures. Founded in 2020, Socket’s services have gained new relevance thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence coding tools from Anthropic PBC, OpenAI and Cursor. These companies developed AI systems to streamline work for software engineers by training models on repositories of open-source code online, increasing the urgency of any security vulnerabilities in that code. Anthropic and Cursor are also Socket customers. “It’s like the perfect storm for Socket,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Feross Aboukhadijeh. “You couldn’t ask for a better moment in terms of what our product does and what the market needs.”

Breitbart [5/20/2026 9:00 AM, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), 2238K] reports American-led innovation has built a digitally connected world that’s created enormous benefits for American families and businesses. For most American families, access to people and products from anywhere in the world comes as easily as reaching for the phone in our pocket. Now, imagine if tomorrow that access we’ve become familiar and comfortable with became our biggest threat. Think of a world in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were able to launch a cyber-attack and target your power and water, block your bank accounts, or turn off your internet. That’s the reality America faces today and why we are fighting to protect American families and pass the Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act. The CCP understands the vulnerability of weak cybersecurity infrastructure. Communist China is constantly prodding U.S. security, looking for a way to undermine the American economy and disrupt our lives with CCP-backed groups of hackers known as "Volt Typhoon" and "Salt Typhoon." The threats posed by CCP-back cyber-attacks are more real than many folks realize. In February 2024, U.S. government agencies revealed that Volt Typhoon had been burrowed into the IT environments of key critical infrastructure sectors like energy, water and wastewater systems, transportation systems, and communications for years.

Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 12:06 PM, Mike Brest, 1147K] reports the United States is competing with Russia, China, and terror groups across the continent of Africa in the information domain, but limited resources are posing hurdles American diplomats and service members need to overcome. U.S. Africa Command Commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, highlighting that the continent has become not just the "epicenter of global terrorism," but also an increasingly important nexus for security and strategic competition. "With a 75% reduction in our regional posture over the past decade, compounded by the drawdown of our allies, we struggle with an intelligence black hole," Anderson said, adding that AFRICOM gets "less than one-tenth of one percent of the department’s budget.” The U.S. is not the only Western country to reduce its footprint on the continent, which has also had an effect. The French and others withdrew from countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in recent years, and this has allowed for terror groups like Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an al Qaeda affiliate, to gain a foothold in the Sahel region. JNIM targeted cities in Mali, like Kayes and Nioro du Sahel, before seeking to take control of Bamako, the capital, and doing so would give them the chance to secure "the resources and trappings of a nation state," Anderson said in his written testimony.

The Hill [5/20/2026 9:59 AM, Sarah Davis, 18170K] reports Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) investigated after an explosive device detonated half a block from a polling station in the Keystone State during Tuesday’s primary race in the state. In a Tuesday statement, PSP said that no one was injured in the incident and that voting at the polling station remained open. Officials added that “no information exists” to suggest that this incident was related to the polling center. No one had been arrested at the time of PSP’s announcement. The device was thrown from a moving vehicle in Catasauqua, Pa., on Tuesday around 9:15 a.m., according to the police report. Polls opened in the state at 7 a.m. that morning. One resident, Kelsey Allen, told local Fox 29 that the device detonated under her car as she drove down the street. Allen was not injured and said her vehicle was not damaged. “Right as I turned left, whatever the explosive was, it goes off, goes all over the front of my car,” she said. “And I’m so glad I had my window up because it was literally right there.” Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel said the event was an “isolated incident from everything we can determine,” according to Votebeat. The polling site was located inside of the Salem United Church of Christ in the small eastern city in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. Catasauqua is a suburb of Allentown and had a population of 6,518 in the 2020 census.

Washington Examiner [5/20/2026 11:54 AM, Claire Carter, 1147K] reports the two suspects in a shooting at a mosque in San Diego who killed three people praised other religious-inspired shootings in an alleged manifesto, as well as spewing hatred toward Jews, Islam, and women. Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, are reportedly the two suspects who charged into the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday and opened fire, killing a security guard and two other members of the mosque. The incident has been labeled as a hate crime. Law enforcement officials on Tuesday said the teenagers had met online before meeting in person prior to committing the attack. Officials said the two were radicalized on social media. An FBI official confirmed the manifesto’s existence, saying that it detailed broad hatred for many groups. An independent journalist leaked the excerpts of the alleged manifesto, which was then separately reported on by the California Post, which credited Clark as the writer. The alleged manifesto said the suspects were planning to "cause as much death and destruction to the system and the invaders as efficiently and quickly with a diverse (lol) selection of targets.” CBS also reported that the alleged manifesto glorified other mass shootings.

NBC News [5/20/2026 4:42 PM, Daniel Arkin and Pilar Melendez, 42967K] reports the two teenage suspects in this week’s deadly attack on a San Diego mosque appear to have written a 75-page document replete with neo-Nazi ideology, incel rage and racist meme culture drawn from the darkest corners of the internet. In an echo of the 2019 massacre at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the suspects appeared to have worn body cameras that livestreamed their assault, video of which has circulated online. The suspects — identified by authorities as Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark, teenagers who are believed to have first met online — killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego before taking their own lives on Monday. Authorities looking into the motivation behind the shooting are working to authenticate the lengthy typewritten document, which is filled with vitriol about Muslims, Jewish people, Black people, Latino people, the LGBTQ community, women and various other identity groups. The document features Nazi iconography and explicit references to accelerationism, a white supremacist ideology that encourages acts of violence to hasten the creation of a white "ethnostate."

Daily Caller [5/20/2026 11:17 AM, Hudson Crozier, 803K] reports that online writings linked to the gunmen in Monday’s deadly California mosque shooting show broad hatred for humanity that crossed political lines. Now-deceased teenage suspects Cain Clark and Caleb Velasquez wished death upon non-whites and women and described the right and left as beholden to malicious Jewish influence, according to a 75-page screed obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation that law enforcement sources said they are reviewing in comments to media outlets. Clark and Velasquez were found dead from self-inflicted gunshots after police say they killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego. The possible manifesto, which names the suspects as authors, repeatedly promotes "accelerationism," a term white supremacist groups use to describe collapsing society through a race war. FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily confirmed Tuesday that the materials law enforcement obtained indicate they "did not discriminate on who they hated." A portion purportedly authored by Velasquez encouraged leftists to assassinate President Donald Trump, whom both supposed authors describe as controlled by Jews. "You hate Trump so much? Then kill him!" the document says. "And this time don’t miss." "YES I am inciting violence from the left, because as an accelerationist I know that it takes all sides opening fire to cause that much desired societal collapse," the author wrote. "So go ahead, follow through for once."

New York Times [5/20/2026 10:57 AM, Shaila Dewan and Jill Cowan, 148038K] reports the young men who killed three people outside a San Diego mosque complex this week had expressed hatred for all types of people, inspired by vitriol and conspiracy theories they found online, law enforcement officials said. But it was Muslims they chose to target. To some, the killings seemed like an inevitable result of a swell of Islamophobia in the United States and around the globe. Anti-Muslim rhetoric on the right has become louder, with Republican politicians raising concerns about new Muslim schools and growing Muslim communities, and at the most extreme, suggesting Muslims don’t belong here. Muslema Purmul, 43, whose children attended school on the mosque campus, said her 12-year-old son was feeling gloomy, angry and sad. “Then he said something that really hurt us,” Ms. Parmul said, her voice breaking. “He said, ‘I feel unwanted.’” Ms. Purmul, a longtime member of the community who knew all three of the shooting victims, said that her son had gone on to observe, “If this were to happen to anyone else, everyone would make a much bigger deal about it.” Hatred against Muslims is a longstanding problem. But the escalating conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, the war in Iran, and the reverberations of both throughout American politics, have ushered in a new phase of overt discrimination and fears of violence. Politicians like Representative Randy Fine of Florida have enthusiastically embraced Islamophobia, saying it is rational and more of it is needed. President Trump himself has a history of criticizing Muslims and Islam, and has recently posted about the war in Iran in inflammatory terms, including a message on Easter in which he promised that “a whole civilization will die.” In another message he signed off, “praise be to Allah.”

CBS News [5/20/2026 7:24 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports the World Health Organization on Wednesday said the risk of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak was currently high at the national and regional levels but low worldwide. WHO experts said that while investigations into its origins were ongoing, given the scale of the situation in the eastern DRC, the outbreak probably began a couple of months ago. But the UN health agency’s emergency committee said it did not currently meet the pandemic emergency threshold. "WHO assesses the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels, and low at the global level," said the organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. So far, 51 cases have been confirmed in the DRC, in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, "although we know the scale of the epidemic in DRC is much larger," he told a press conference at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. He said Uganda had also reported two confirmed cases in the capital Kampala, including one death, while a U.S. national working in the DRC has been confirmed positive and transferred to Germany. American doctor Peter Stafford, whose family lived with him in the DRC, was evacuated to Germany and was receiving treatment, the missionary group Serge said Tuesday. "There are several factors that warrant serious concern about the potential for further spread and further deaths," said Tedros. "Beyond the confirmed cases, there are almost 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths," he said. "We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected.”

ABC News [5/20/2026 3:35, Morgan Winsor, David Brennan, Youri Benadjaoud, and Mary Kekatos, 34146K] reports the American doctor who contracted Ebola and was transferred to Germany is starting to feel better and is able to eat, according to his colleague. Dr. Peter Stafford is currently hospitalized in Berlin’s Charite University Hospital after testing positive for the disease due to his work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His colleague, Matt Allison -- the executive director of Serge, the Christian missionary group Stafford works for -- told ABC News that the doctor has been receiving monoclonal antibodies during his hospitalization. Allison said it appears Stafford’s condition has improved since landing in Germany and that he has been able to text his colleagues. "He needed assistance to walk. He was very weak. He was discouraged ... he was talking about just being almost unable to think," Allison said. "I mean [it] was the combination of the isolation, the uncertainty, feeling really sick. It was a lot to carry. And so I’m so glad that he’s responding quickly to us."

Politico [5/20/2026 11:48 AM, Jacob Wendler, Dana Nickel, Dasha Burns and John Hewitt Jones, 21784K] reports the White House’s highly anticipated artificial intelligence and cybersecurity executive order will designate a coalition of national security and civilian agencies to ramp up scrutiny of cutting-edge AI models, five people familiar with the initiative told POLITICO. Industry officials began receiving details on the directive from the White House on Tuesday night, said four of the people familiar with discussions about the executive order. It could come as early as Thursday, three people knowledgeable about the planning said. The people were granted anonymity to share details of ongoing, highly confidential discussions. One key question is whether the order will require a federal review of advanced AI models before they can be released, an idea the Trump administration had distanced itself from earlier this month after initially floating the proposal. The latest draft would ask developers of the systems to submit certain models to a voluntary review by a phalanx of federal agencies as far as 90 days before they’re made public, people familiar with it said. The expected executive action represents the administration’s latest step to tighten scrutiny over developers of advanced AI systems and address the risk of catastrophic harm while maintaining a broadly pro-innovation approach to the technology. The move comes amid a policy clash between Anthropic and the Pentagon over the company’s efforts to limit certain military uses of its technology, as well as the subsequent release of Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model to a select group of companies. Weeks of conflicting signals from the administration about the evolving policy had left some people following the policy perplexed about where the White House was heading. “Everybody’s involved,” one person familiar with the matter said of the order. “That’s why it’s been on the table and off the table and on the table and off.” The draft executive order is expected to contain at least two sections. The first focuses on cybersecurity and the second on “covered frontier models,” three of the people said. The first segment gives the Pentagon 30 days to secure its networks, including key telecommunications and information systems. The administration would have 30 days to mandate wider AI use across government systems and critical infrastructure organizations, such as community banks, rural hospitals and utilities, according to three of the people. The directive also tasks the Treasury Department with leading voluntary work with AI industry officials to form a clearinghouse within 30 days, according to five of the people familiar with details of the order. The effort will establish a voluntary partnership with AI-makers and critical infrastructure owners and operators to find and patch vulnerabilities, the people said. Other federal agencies including the Office of the National Cyber Director, the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will support the effort, according to the people. The Office of Personnel Management will be tasked with increasing hiring at the U.S. Tech Force, a program announced by OPM Director Scott Kupor late last year to attract top AI talent to various federal agencies, according to three of the people familiar with the order.

Telemundo [5/20/2026 8:31 PM, Staff, 162K] reports the U.S. Navy announced Wednesday that its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is sailing through the Caribbean amid rising tensions between Cuba and the United States. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) posted a video on social media highlighting the capabilities of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG). The publication coincides with the day the U.S. government indicted Cuban leader Raúl Castro , along with five other Cubans, on murder and other charges in connection with the downing of Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996. The images describe the group as a team with "the highest level of preparedness and presence, with unmatched reach, lethal capability and strategic advantage." They also point out that "the USS Nimitz has demonstrated its combat capability around the world, ensuring stability and defending democracy from the Taiwan Strait to the Arabian Gulf." On May 15, SOUTHCOM had announced that the Strike Group would be deployed as part of the Southern Seas 2026 mission, scheduled to conduct exercises and maritime operations while circumnavigating South America. Prior to its arrival in the Caribbean, the aircraft carrier Nimitz conducted joint exercises with the Brazilian Navy. "The exercises at sea included communications drills, anti-submarine training, formation maneuvers and air defense exercises," they explained in a statement. On May 18, the Southern Command account also shared a post emphasizing the precision and lethal capability of the forces under SOUTHCOM’s jurisdiction. A video accompanying the message shows a countdown while a ticking clock plays and images of military equipment flash by. The final image, before the Southern Command emblem appears, focuses on a nighttime satellite view with Cuba positioned directly in the center.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [5/20/2026 7:07 PM, Staff, 3760K] r

New York Times [5/20/2026 2:08 PM, Alan Feuer, Frances Robles and David C. Adams, 148038K] reports the Justice Department announced charges on Wednesday against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, accusing him of murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens stemming from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of his country. The indictment, issued in Federal District Court in Miami, was an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s multifaceted pressure campaign against Cuba’s Communist government at a moment when President Trump has been seeking to topple it. The charges brought to bear on Mr. Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, the vast powers of the U.S. criminal justice system, saddling him with a possible maximum penalty of life in prison. They also raised the possibility that the United States could be paving the way for its military to remove him from the country through a means similar to how U.S. Special Operations forces used an indictment against Nicolás Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela, to swoop into Caracas in a brazen operation in January and capture him. The indictment, which also accused five fighter pilots involved in the attack on the planes, was secretly returned last month by a federal grand jury and built on earlier charges, first filed in 2003, against one of them. At a news conference in Miami, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, accused Mr. Castro and the pilots of killing four people when the Cuban military shot down the planes on the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996. The planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that often scoured the seas for Cubans fleeing the country. Fidel Castro took responsibility for downing the planes shortly after they were brought from the sky, claiming that the organization had been dropping anti-regime leaflets over Havana in earlier flights. The indictment said that Raúl Castro was also responsible because he and his brother were “the final decision makers” in the Cuban military chain of command. Mr. Blanche portrayed the charges against Mr. Castro as a historic step toward holding the leaders of Cuba’s government accountable for its past wrongs. “My message today is clear,” he said. “The United States and President Trump does not — and will not — forget its citizens.” Mr. Blanche sidestepped questions about whether the indictment was a prelude to U.S. military action, saying that the decision rested with Mr. Trump and his foreign policy team. Mr. Trump himself refused to say on Wednesday whether he would use the military to extract Mr. Castro from Cuba, telling reporters, “I don’t want to say that.” Beyond military force, however, there were not many options to get Mr. Castro to the United States to face charges. Mr. Blanche said that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, though it was unlikely that the Cubans would turn him over. In a statement, Mr. Blanche nonetheless said he expected Mr. Castro to eventually show up in the United States, whether “by his own will or another way.” The Cuban government, in a statement, rebuked the United States. “It is highly cynical for this accusation to be made by the very same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from United States territory, through the disproportionate use of military force,” it said.

Reported similarly:
AP [5/20/2026 3:55 PM, Joshua Goodman and Alanna Durkin Richer, 3833K]

AP [5/20/2026 5:30 PM, Michael Weissenstein, 35287K] reports a group founded by Cuban exiles known as Brothers to the Rescue is at the center of the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to seek an indictment against Cuban leader Raúl Castro, a move reviving one of the lowest points in the two countries’ bitter decadeslong relationship. The indictment is connected to Castro’s alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two planes operated by the Miami-based exile group. Castro was defense minister at the time, making him the nation’s highest authority after his brother Fidel. Brothers to the Rescue began operating in 1980 during 125,000 Cubans’ unexpected emigration to the United States. Founded by emigré José Basulto, it aimed to help Cuban refugees in the Florida straits by dropping supplies from small planes and alerting the U.S. Coast Guard. The monthslong crisis began after some Cubans protested travel restrictions imposed by President Fidel Castro’s communist government and Castro opened the port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to leave, filling the Florida straits with desperate people. U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration changed immigration rules to discourage Cubans from heading north on rickety, makeshift boats. Meanwhile, Brothers to the Rescue, which is also known by its Spanish name Hermanos al Rescate, continued flying toward Cuban airspace and provoking Havana.

FOX News [5/20/2026 9:03 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller discusses the ‘long-awaited justice’ of Raul Castro’s indictment and Cuba’s communist threat on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS News [5/20/2026 1:02 PM, Mark Osborne, 51110K] reports U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Wednesday directly to the Cuban people in a video recorded in Spanish, criticizing the country’s elite for being corrupt and offering a "new path," including a proposed $100 million influx of food and medicine. The message came as U.S. officials are preparing to announce an expected indictment of former President Raúl Castro. Rubio, the son of Cuban parents who immigrated to Florida two years before Fidel Castro rose to power, targeted the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., or GAESA, a politically-connected Cuban business organization that Rubio alleges has $18 billion in assets and control 70% of the economy. "They profit from hotels, construction, banks, stores and even from the money your relatives send you from the U.S. everything, everything passes through their hands," Rubio said, translated from Spanish. "From those remittances they retain a percentage, but from GAESA’s profits nothing reaches you." Cuba is currently dealing with a massive blackout affecting most of the country as an already shaky power grid crashed due to the U.S. blocking oil from entering the country since January. Cuba routinely received oil supplies from Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, but he was removed from power by the U.S. in a military operation in January and indicted on drug trafficking charges. "The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil ‘blockade’ by the U.S. As you know, better than anyone, you have been suffering from blackouts for years," Rubio said. "The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people." Rubio said the offer of $100 million in relief supplies, one the U.S. has made previously, must be distributed to the Cuban people through the Catholic Church or other charitable groups in order to avoid it being "stolen by GAESA to sell in one of their stores.”

CBS News [5/20/2026 6:14 PM, James LaPorta, Margaret Brennan and Olivia Gazis, 51110K] reports the U.S. intelligence community has been exploring how Cuba might respond to an American military action, CBS News has learned. Earlier this month, as the U.S. intelligence community tracked the Universal, a sanctioned Russian-flagged oil tanker bound for Cuba, analysts at the Pentagon and Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. military’s intelligence arm, started to analyze what the Cuban response would be to an American attack on the Caribbean country. Work on developing military options for President Trump has begun, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. Both requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
These types of intelligence forecasts attempt not only to show the immediate consequences of an American action, but the chain of reactions that may follow. U.S. military planners frequently incorporate such analysis into developing options for a president to consider. When asked Wednesday by reporters if there would be further escalation in Cuba following the U.S. indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, Mr. Trump replied, "No, there won’t be escalation. I don’t think there needs to be.” The blowback assessment from the U.S. intelligence community is not clear, but it is ongoing and comes as tensions between Havana and Washington have been rising. This year, the Trump administration has issued more sanctions, targeted Cuban military and intelligence officials and expanded efforts to choke off Cuba’s fuel and shipping access. CBS News has confirmed that Cuba has acquired attack drones — it’s not clear who provided the drones or how they were obtained. On Sunday, Axios, which first reported the news of the Cuban drones, said Havana had obtained more than 300 military drones and had discussed plans to use them to attack the U.S. military installation at Guantanamo Bay if hostilities with the U.S. erupt. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denied Havana poses any military threat to the U.S., but warned that a U.S. assault would cause a "bloodbath.”

NewsMax [5/20/2026 5:26 PM, Staff, 3760K] reports the U.S. special envoy to Greenland, the Arctic island coveted by President Donald Trump, told AFP on Wednesday that Washington needs to rebuild its presence in the Danish autonomous territory. At the height of the Cold War, Washington had 17 military facilities in Greenland, but it closed them over the years and currently has just one: the Pituffik base in the north of the island. Trump has repeatedly argued the United States needs to control Greenland because of national security concerns, saying that if it does not, the island risks falling into the hands of China or Russia. Greenland is on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States. It is also believed to have untapped rare earth minerals and could be a vital asset as the polar ice melts and new shipping routes emerge. "I think it’s time for the U.S. to put its footprint back on Greenland," U.S. envoy Jeff Landry told AFP as he wound up his first visit to the island since his appointment in December 2025. "I think that you’re seeing the president talk about increasing national security operations and repopulating certain bases in Greenland," he said. "Greenland needs the U.S.," he added. The United States wants to open three new bases in the south of the territory, according to recent media reports. Trump backed down from threats to seize Greenland in January, and a U.S.-Danish-Greenlandic working group was set up to address his concerns. Even if a "master’s" desire to "secure control of Greenland ... is completely disrespectful ... we are obliged to find a solution," Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told reporters on the sidelines of a Greenland economic forum on Tuesday.

New York Times [5/21/2026 5:02 AM, Steven Lee Myers, 18082K] reports Ben Gilbert describes himself on Bluesky, the social media app, as an “economist, lit and guitar nerd, rugby fan, owner of excessive pets.” A professor at the Colorado School of Mines, he rarely posts, but when he does, the subjects reflect his expertise in natural resources. So it was odd when a video purporting to be a news report appeared on his account last month, blaming France’s financial and political support for Ukraine for police staff shortages at home. Without his knowledge, Mr. Gilbert said, he had fallen victim to Russia’s latest tactic to try to spread its propaganda in the West. His account, like hundreds of others on Bluesky, had been hijacked and used to post fake news articles, according to the company and researchers at Clemson University working with a collective of internet monitors who track Russian influence operations and call themselves the dTeam. The compromised Bluesky accounts included those of people who are influential in their fields, though perhaps not famous. They were journalists and professors, a pollster in Texas, an anime artist and a filmmaker in Hollywood, whose account posted a video doctored by artificial intelligence to impersonate a Canadian police official criticizing France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. The campaign, which the researchers at Clemson linked to the Social Design Agency, a company in Moscow, shows how Russia continues to seek new ways to erode public support for Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded in 2022. Bluesky has grown more prominent as a rival platform to X since X’s owner, Elon Musk, threw his political support behind President Trump before the 2024 election. With 42 million users, though, Bluesky trails far behind X’s nearly 600 million. While Russians have long flooded social media platforms with fake accounts and content, hacking into real accounts appeared to be a novel strategy. “They are clearly still experimenting,” said Darren L. Linvill, a director of Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub. “They’re always experimenting.” Bluesky has been tracking the activity and removing the posts — as many as a couple of thousand. They came in waves beginning in April and continuing until at least last week. In a statement, the company called Russian influence operations “an industrywide problem.” “We dedicate significant resources toward detecting and disrupting coordinated inauthentic campaigns,” the statement said. Mr. Gilbert of the Colorado School of Mines, a public research university near Denver, learned of the post on his account when New York Times contacted him. “I just deleted it,” he wrote in an email. In other cases, Bluesky has suspended accounts until the owners stepped forward to reset them. Many targets learned of the hacking only when they were locked out of their accounts. One of them was Pamela Wood, a political reporter at The Baltimore Banner. She was on vacation on April 28 when her account was suspended after it posted a short video with a caption that said The New York Post had linked Ukraine to the man charged with trying to assassinate Mr. Trump last month at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. “Bluesky didn’t provide much information but suggested that my account may have been hacked or compromised,” Ms. Wood said. “My account is rather vanilla — just posting my stories, pretty much — and I hadn’t posted or even looked at Bluesky in a few days, so getting hacked made the most sense.”

Breitbart [5/20/2026 8:15 AM, Frances Martel, 2238K] reports the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday to Cuban figurehead "president" Miguel Díaz-Canel predicting a "bloodbath" in the event of American action against the communist regime by offering its support to Cuba and demanding an end to American sanctions. Díaz-Canel made his comment in response to a report by the website Axios claiming that American authorities had reason to believe that Russia and Iran had supplied hundreds of drones to the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and that American officials were studying a response to that threat. The report also claimed that the Communist Party was considering drone strikes on Florida, among other targets. Cuba has been ruled by a violent communist insurgency since the 1959 Fidel Castro coup d’etat and is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, maintaining ties with groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hezbollah, among others. The Cuban government, through various officials, attempted to downplay the report as absurd or ridiculous. Díaz-Canel, who serves as the face of the Cuban government, issued a statement declaring that the "threats" from the United States allegedly represented by the Axios report could lead to mass killing. "If they [the alleged threats] are to materialize," he wrote on social media, "they will provoke a bloodbath of incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on peace and regional stability." "Cuba, which already suffers multidimensional aggression from the U.S., does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself from a bellicose assault," he continued, "which cannot be logically or honestly interpreted as an excuse to impose war against the noble Cuban people.”

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