By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Drawing upon her personal and political past, Jane Fonda has revived an activist group from the Cold War era that was backed by her father and fellow Oscar winner, Henry Fonda.

Jane Fonda announced she had launched a 21st century incarnation of the Committee for the First Amendment, originally formed in 1947 in response to Congressional hearings aimed against screenwriters and directors — notably the so-called “Hollywood Ten” — and their alleged Communist ties. Signers of the new organization’s mission statement include Florence Pugh, Sean Penn,Billie Eilish, Pedro Pascal and hundreds of others.

Wednesday’s news comes in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension by ABC over his on-air comments after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. President Donald Trump was among those who had wanted Kimmel to be fired.

“The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” the committee’s mission statement reads in part.

“We refuse to stand by and let that happen. Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs — no matter how liberal or conservative you may be. The ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.”

The Fondas each have had long histories of activism, whether Jane Fonda’s opposition to the Vietnam War or Henry Fonda’s prominent support for Democratic Party candidates, including John F. Kennedy, for whom the elder Fonda appeared in a campaign ad in 1960.

Henry Fonda, who died in 1982, joined the 1947 First Amendment committee along with such actors and filmmakers as Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Although highly publicized at the time, the committee had a short and troubled history. Bogart and others would find themselves accused of Communist sympathies and would express surprise when a handful of the Hollywood Ten, including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, turned to have been Communist Party members at one time or another.

By the following year, Bogart had published an essay in Photoplay magazine entitled “I’m No Communist,” in which he confided that “actors and actresses always go overboard about things” and warned against being “used as dupes by Commie organizations.” Trumbo and others in the Hollywood Ten would be jailed for refusing to cooperate with Congress and found themselves among many to be blacklisted through the end of the 1950s and beyond.

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 30, the 273rd day of 2025. There are 92 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 30, 1938, addressing the public after cosigning the Munich Agreement, which allowed Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proclaimed, “I believe it is peace for our time.”

Also on this date:

In 1777, the Continental Congress — forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces — moved to York, Pennsylvania, after briefly meeting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In 1791, Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” premiered in Vienna, Austria.

In 1947, the World Series was broadcast on television for the first time, as the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3 in Game 1; the Yankees would go on to win the Series four games to three.

In 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end after delivering more than 2.3 million tons of cargo to blockaded residents of West Berlin over the prior 15 months.

In 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

In 1955, actor James Dean was killed at age 24 in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.

In 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente connected for his 3,000th and final hit, a double against Jon Matlack of the New York Mets at Three Rivers Stadium.

In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to illegally annex more occupied Ukrainian territory in a sharp escalation of his seven-month invasion.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Angie Dickinson is 94.
• Singer Johnny Mathis is 90.
• Actor Len Cariou is 86.
• Singer Marilyn McCoo is 82.
• Actor Barry Williams is 71.
• Singer Patrice Rushen is 71.
• Actor Fran Drescher is 68.
• Country musician Marty Stuart is 67.
• Actor Crystal Bernard is 64.
• Actor Eric Stoltz is 64.
• Rapper-producer Marley Marl is 63.
• Country musician Eddie Montgomery (Montgomery Gentry) is 62.
• Rock singer Trey Anastasio (Phish) is 61.
• Actor Monica Bellucci is 61.
• Actor Tony Hale is 55.
• Actor Jenna Elfman is 54.
• Actor Marion Cotillard is 50.
• Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates is 50.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Hingis is 45.
• Olympic gold medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu is 44.
• Actor Lacey Chabert is 43.
• Actor Kieran Culkin is 43.
• Singer-rapper T-Pain is 41.
• Racing driver Max Verstappen is 28.
• Actor-dancer Maddie Ziegler is 23.

Video surveillance caught the liquid larceny: A man pulled a box truck behind a Minnesota strip mall in the wee hours in late October, got out, grabbed a hose and jammed it into a bin of used cooking oil outside Great Moon Buffet.

He siphoned nearly $800 worth of grease from the restaurant, pumping it into a storage container in the back of the truck and slipping away into the darkness, according to felony charges against the alleged culprit, who’s also accused of hitting up two other restaurants.

“I had never heard of anything like this before,” said Derek Fritze, a 10-year Maplewood police detective who investigated the case. “Apparently, it’s a big thing.”

But it’s not new, just more widespread as used cooking oil has become liquid gold over the past decade because it’s recycled for the production of biofuel, said Kent Swisher, president and CEO of the North American Renderers Association. He said thieves are stealing up to $80 million worth of the grease every year, up from $42 million in 2013.

“So, yeah, it’s across the country,” he said of the thievery. “And as prices have gotten stronger over time, you’d think the renderers would be happy. But it actually created more problems, because it created more people trying to steal it.”

Renderers and smaller businesses collect the oil from restaurants, who are compensated depending on the volume. It’s then processed and sold to refineries. Besides biofuel, it’s used as a nutritional additive in animal feed.

The global used cooking oil market is expanding rapidly. It was valued at $7 billion in 2023 and is expected to top $14 billion by 2033, according to market analysts.

Meanwhile, U.S. restaurants have been getting 10 to 50 cents per gallon this year for the grease, says Florida-based recycler Grease Connections.

Slippery bandit

A manager at Great Moon Buffet noticed the restaurant had only been getting about $15 a month — instead of the usual $600 to $700 — because the amount of used cooking oil in the barrel out back was low when picked up by Sanimax, a rendering company with a plant in South St. Paul.

So he put up surveillance cameras, which caught the illicit act going down just before 4 a.m. Oct. 23. Cameras got an image of the man’s face, and the back license plate of his white box truck. The manager reported the theft to police on Oct. 28.

Less than two weeks later, around 4:20 a.m. Nov. 7, police saw the truck parked outside a restaurant on Beam Avenue, the criminal complaint says. The driver denied stealing used oil from any restaurant. He said the truck belonged to his friends, and that he stopped in the parking lot because his truck was not working.

Police say they later matched the driver’s face to the man in the Great Moon Buffet surveillance video.

Sanimax gave police a list of other restaurants where surveillance cameras allegedly caught the same man stealing grease: New Hong Kong Wok in New Brighton about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2024, and Peking Garden Restaurant in St. Paul around 4 a.m. eight days later.

Sanimax put the value of the oil stolen from the three restaurants at just over $3,600.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged the Minneapolis man with three counts of theft, two at the felony level. His attorney did not respond to the Pioneer Press’ requests for comment on the allegations.

Prevention tactics

On a recent weekday morning, a Sanimax driver pulled up to Concord Lanes and sucked out used cooking oil from a large bin on the side of the bowling alley. It’ll end up just down the road at the company’s South St. Paul plant, a remnant of the city’s stockyards and meatpacking days.

Mike Karman, Sanimax vice president of procurement, said used cooking oil theft has been a problem for at least a decade — mostly in larger metropolitan areas — and it’s been more prevalent in the Twin Cities over the past two summers compared to neighboring states.

“We see multiple different trucks, so we know it’s more than one actor,” he said of the local spate of thefts. “So I can say that there’s more than one truck running around doing it.”

To try to prevent the thievery, Sanimax puts its bins inside restaurants when there’s room or puts locks on them. “But the problem is,” Karman said, “most of these thieves, even if there is a lock on where you dump in the oil, they’ll just lift and bend up a corner of the lid and stick in a pipe to suck it out.”

Expensive anti-theft lids are also an option, although thieves are known to drill through the bin to get at the oil, he said.

Samimax also does its own surveillance, he said, without getting into the details.

Sanimax told police that man who took the Great Moon Buffet grease could be employed or contracted by rival recycling business Greasehauler. Sanimax did its own investigation and found the man’s truck parked at Greasehauler’s plant in Plato, Minn., several times.

Karman said he couldn’t get into all that, but added: “We take our business seriously, so when we see that there is theft, we utilize all of our resources.”

Greasehauler owner Lev Mirman, when contacted by the Pioneer Press, said he had never heard of the man charged in the Great Moon Buffet theft. He said he gets used cooking oil from several sources and that it’s possible someone gave him a fake name.

Karman said Sanimax does not buy grease from non-vetted suppliers, but there is no regulation stopping other processors from doing so.

Syndicates charged federally

Swisher, from the Virginia-based renderers association, said they started a task force in 2013 to try to get law enforcement to put more focus on the thefts “because at the time, everybody kind of giggled about stolen used cooking oil.”

That’s no longer the case, he said.

“It’s become such a big thing over the years that it’s even gotten the FBI’s attention. And some of the syndicates are quite large,” he said. “When you Google it, it’s kind of amazing how many stories pop up these days.”

The alleged capers range from a lone man with a single truck to an organized ring running a whole fleet.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted 21 co-conspirators — including 12 from Mexico and one from Turkey — on several charges in 2019 for allegedly stealing nearly $4 million worth of used cooking oil over five years. The ring operated across North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, storing the stolen grease in a warehouse, the indictment says.

In December, a federal grand jury in western New York announced the indictment of six New York men for allegedly stealing at least 90,000 pounds of used grease from restaurants in and around Rochester. They sold the oil to a broker, who sold it to a refinery in Erie, Pennsylvania, the indictment says.

Swisher said his association disbanded their task force after renderers started taking theft precautions. Many now have cameras, hire private investigators and offer cash rewards to try to catch the thieves. He knows of at least one renderer that puts electronic anti-theft devices on its bins that sense when the oil is being stolen and alerts police or private investigators.

An apology, cash offer

Peking Garden co-owner Teresa Nguyen said she didn’t know someone stole their grease last year. But that wasn’t the case five years ago at their former University Avenue location, when she caught a guy siphoning oil from a bin they shared with a neighboring restaurant, Golden Gate Cafe.

She thought at first he was a Sanimax driver collecting the grease. But then he “looked afraid” and apologized, she said, and offered her $100 cash on the spot to not call the police.

She refused, told him it wasn’t just her oil. She asked him to go to Golden Gate and explain what he had done because both restaurants had been noticing the Sanimax compensation checks were smaller than usual.

The man left in his box truck, but didn’t go to Golden Gate. The theft went unreported to police.

“Honestly, we have a lot of customers in the cities that we know get stolen from, but we can’t quite quantify it because a lot of times they don’t take all of it,” said Karman, of Sanimax. “But then the customer goes, ‘Oh, my checks are half the size they used to be. I wonder why.’ And then they just go on to doing something else and don’t report it.”

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Farmington Hills man accused of stabbing girlfriend multiple times while traveling on M-10

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration moved Thursday to shut down a Miami organ donation group, calling it “failing” because of underperformance, unsafe practices and paperwork errors.

The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency is one of 55 organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, nonprofit agencies around the country that coordinate the recovery of organs from deceased donors and help match them to patients on the nation’s transplant waiting list.

The administration cited an investigation that found a 2024 case where an unspecified mistake led a surgeon to decline a donated heart for a patient awaiting surgery.

In a news briefing, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said problems included would-be donations that went unrecovered, sending some donated organs to the wrong place and a lack of staff.

Life Alliance, a division of the University of Miami Health System, can appeal the decision. If it is shut down, it would mark the first time the federal government has decertified an OPO.

Life Alliance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

More than 100,000 Americans are on the transplant list and thousands die waiting because there aren’t enough donations to go around. Last year there were more than 48,000 transplants, a record, the vast majority from deceased donors.

Changes to the transplant system have been underway for years to increase donations, reduce waste of potentially usable organs and address other concerns. They include some new safeguards after complaints last year that a different OPO didn’t stop donation preparations quickly enough when some patients showed signs of life, prompting some people to opt out of donor registries. Organ donation can proceed only after a hospital has declared someone dead — and by law, OPOs cannot be involved in that decision.

On Thursday, Oz sought to reassure would-be donors.

“Congress has thoughtfully and aggressively pursued some horrifying stories that have chilled some Americans’ enthusiasm for donating organs. We are here today to tell you this system is safe. It’s rigorously being addressed,” he said, adding later, “I want to applaud the OPOs that are doing a great job because most are.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey sued the U.S. government Monday to get her job back, saying her firing was for political reasons and was unconstitutional.

Her lawsuit in Manhattan federal court blamed the firing on the fact that her father is James Comey, a former F.B.I. director, “or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”

Comey is seeking to be reinstated as well as a declaration that her firing was unlawful and a violation of the “Separation of Powers” clause in the U.S. Constitution.

“Defendants have not provided any explanation whatsoever for terminating Ms. Comey. In truth, there is no legitimate explanation,” the lawsuit said.

Comey, who successfully prosecuted hundreds of cases since becoming an assistant U.S. attorney in 2015, was notified of her dismissal in an email with an attachment saying she was being fired “(p)ursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” the lawsuit said.

James Comey was fired as FBI director by President Donald Trump in 2017. The lawsuit noted that he has since written a memoir critical of Trump and has continued to publicly criticize Trump and his administration, including a social media post in May that Trump and others perceived as threatening.

The lawsuit noted that Maurene Comey’s firing in July came the day after her supervisors had asked her to take the lead on a major public corruption case and three months after she’d received her latest “Outstanding” review.

“The politically motivated termination of Ms. Comey — ostensibly under ‘Article II of the Constitution’ — upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system,” the lawsuit said. “Assistant United States Attorneys like Ms. Comey must do their jobs without fearing or favoring any political party or perspective, guided solely by the law, the facts, and the pursuit of justice.”

Named as defendants in the lawsuit were, among others, the Justice Department, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.

A message for comment from the Justice Department was not immediately returned.

Comey’s July 16 firing came amid a spate of dismissals of prosecutors by the Justice Department without explanation, raising alarm that civil service protections meant to prevent terminations for political reasons were being overlooked.

Comey’s lawsuit noted that she was employed with protections under the Civil Service Reform Act governing how and why she could be terminated, including specific prohibitions against termination for discriminatory reasons such as political affiliation.

“Her termination violated every one of those protections,” the lawsuit said.

The Justice Department also has fired some prosecutors who worked on cases that have provoked Trump’s ire, including some who handled U.S. Capitol riot cases and lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump.

She became a rising star in her office for her work on the case against financier Jeffrey Epstein and his onetime girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and the recent prosecution of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her December 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges. She was recently transferred from a prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas.

Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Combs is awaiting sentencing next month after his conviction on prostitution-related charges after he was exonerated in July of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.

Today is Saturday, Sept. 13, the 256th day of 2025. There are 109 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 13, 1993, at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.

Also on this date:

In 1788, the Congress of the Confederation authorized the first national election and declared New York City the temporary national capital.

In 1948, Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was elected to the U.S. Senate; she became the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

In 1971, a four-day inmate rebellion at the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York ended as police and guards stormed the prison; the ordeal and final assault claimed the lives of 32 inmates and 11 hostages.

In 1997, a funeral was held in Kolkata, India, for Nobel peace laureate Mother Teresa.

In 2008, crews rescued people from their homes in an all-out search for thousands of Texans who had stayed behind overnight to face Hurricane Ike.

In 2010, Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic to win his first U.S. Open title and complete a career Grand Slam.

In 2021, school resumed for New York City public school students in the nation’s largest experiment of in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Barbara Bain is 94.
• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Óscar Arias is 85.
• Rock singer David Clayton-Thomas (Blood, Sweat & Tears) is 84.
• Actor Jacqueline Bisset is 81.
• Singer Peter Cetera is 81.
• Actor Jean Smart is 74.
• Record producer Don Was is 73.
• Chef Alain Ducasse is 69.
• Rock singer-musician Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) is 64.
• Olympic gold medal sprinter Michael Johnson is 58.
• Filmmaker Tyler Perry is 56.
• Fashion designer Stella McCartney is 54.
• Former tennis player Goran Ivanisevic (ee-van-EE’-seh-vihch) is 54.
• Country musician Joe Don Rooney (Rascal Flatts) is 50.
• Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple is 48.
• Actor Ben Savage is 45.
• Soccer player Thomas Müller is 36.
• Rock singer Niall Horan (One Direction) is 32.
• Actor Lili Reinhart (TV: “Riverdale”) is 29.

By Lena H. Sun, Rachel Roubein, Dan Diamond
The Washington Post

Trump health officials plan to link coronavirus vaccines to the deaths of 25 children as they consider limiting which Americans should get the shots, according to four people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential information.

The findings appear to be based on information submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines submitted by anyone, including patients, doctors, pharmacists or even someone who sees a report on social media. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes that the database is not designed to assess whether a shot caused a death, a conclusion that requires thorough investigations by scientists and public health professionals.

Trump health officials plan to include the pediatric deaths claim in a presentation next week to an influential panel of advisers to the CDC that is considering new coronavirus vaccine recommendations, which affect access to the shots and whether they’re free.

The plan has alarmed some career scientists who say coronavirus vaccines have been extensively studied, including in children, and that dangers of the virus itself are being underplayed. CDC staff in June presented data to the same vaccine committee showing that at least 25 children died who had covid-associated hospitalizations since July 2023 and that number was likely an undercount. Of the 16 old enough for vaccination, none was up-to-date on vaccines.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary confirmed on CNN last week that officials were investigating reports of possible child deaths from the vaccine, including reviewing autopsy reports and interviewing families. Such a review could take months, according to health officials, and it is unclear when those investigations began.

The pediatric deaths presentation to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is not final, according to one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe ongoing policy discussions. The full methodology for the analysis was not immediately clear.

“FDA and CDC staff routinely analyze VAERS and other safety monitoring data, and those reviews are being shared publicly through the established ACIP process,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in an email. “Any recommendations on updated COVID-19 vaccines will be based on gold standard science and deliberated transparently at ACIP next week.”

The FDA in August approved the latest coronavirus vaccines for people ages 65 and older or who have risk factors for severe disease, but the CDC vaccine panel can recommend the shots more narrowly or broadly. The committee is weighing a plan to recommend the shot for those 75 and older but instruct people who are younger to speak to a physician before they get the vaccine, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share policy discussions. Another option would not recommend the vaccine to people under the age of 75 without preexisting conditions, the people said.

But limiting access for people ages 65 to 74 has raised concerns about a political backlash, said one federal health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations. According to CDC estimates, nearly 43 percent of people in that age group received the 2024-2025 version of the coronavirus vaccine.

Many countries do not recommend annual coronavirus vaccination for healthy children because they rarely die from covid and most experience mild symptoms. U.S. officials have justified yearly shots based on data showing infants and toddlers faced elevated risk of hospitalization and that significant shares of those who were hospitalized had no underlying conditions. They have also said vaccines offer children protection against long covid.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of coronavirus vaccines, in May directed health officials to stop recommending the shots for otherwise healthy children. The CDC later instructed parents to consult a doctor before getting their children coronavirus vaccines. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends annual coronavirus vaccines for all children ages 6 to 23 months and for older children if their parents want them to have protection.

Next week’s vaccine advisory panel’s meeting is critical because the recommendations determine whether insurers must pay for the immunizations, pharmacies can administer them and doctors are willing to offer them. Kennedy purged the membership of the panel earlier this year and appointed his own picks, most of whom have criticized coronavirus vaccination policy. He is considering adding additional critics of covid shots to the committee.

The previous vaccine panel was already considering a more targeted approach to coronavirus vaccination, recommending the shot for high-risk groups, but allowing others, including children, to get the vaccine if they wanted.

Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of Makary’s top deputies who was a critic of broad childhood coronavirus vaccination before joining the FDA, has been one of the officials looking into vaccine safety data, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private information.

The planned pediatric death presentation included attempts to interview some families, but it’s not clear what other information was used. Some of those same families had been previously interviewed by the CDC officials as part of vaccine safety tracking, according to one person familiar with the matter.

Harleen Marwah, a pediatrician at Mass General Brigham for Children who recently reviewed data on the coronavirus vaccine and its safety and efficacy in children, said new studies since June identified “no new safety concerns.” Marwah conducted the research on behalf of the Vaccine Integrity Project, a new initiative based at the University of Minnesota to provide scientific evidence to inform vaccine recommendations.

The CDC has been monitoring coronavirus vaccine safety data since the first shots rolled out in the United States. Much stricter requirements were put in place for reporting adverse events than for other vaccines because the vaccines were initially fast-tracked under the FDA’s emergency response authority.

Death rates among all ages after mRNA coronavirus vaccination were below those for the general population, according to data presented to the CDC vaccine committee in June.

Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the vaccine advisers terminated by Kennedy, said the focus on vaccine harms ignores the harms of coronavirus.

“They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people,” Brewer said. “The U.S. government is now in the business of vaccine misinformation.”

Today is Friday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2025. There are 110 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 12, 2008, a Metrolink commuter train struck a freight train head-on in Los Angeles, killing 25 people.

Also on this date:

In 1857, the S.S. Central America (also known as the “Ship of Gold”) sank off the coast of South Carolina after sailing into a hurricane in one of the worst maritime disasters in American history; 425 people were killed and thousands of pounds of gold sank with the ship to the bottom of the ocean.

In 1940, the Lascaux cave paintings, estimated to be 17,000 years old, were discovered in southwestern France.

In 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Cooper v. Aaron, unanimously ruled that Arkansas officials who were resisting public school desegregation orders could not disregard the high court’s rulings.

In 1959, the Soviet Union launched its Luna 2 space probe, which made a crash landing on the moon.

In 1962, in a speech at Rice University in Houston, President John F. Kennedy reaffirmed his support for the manned space program, declaring: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

In 1977, South African Black student leader and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, 30, died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.

In 1994, truck driver Frank Eugene Corder piloted a stolen single-engine Cessna airplane into restricted airspace in Washington, D.C., and crashed it into the South Lawn of the White House. He died in the crash.

In 2003, in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly opened fire on vehicles carrying police, killing eight of them.

In 2011, Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal to win his first U.S. Open championship.

In 2013, Voyager 1, launched 36 years earlier, became the first man-made spacecraft ever to leave the solar system.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Linda Gray is 85.
• Singer Maria Muldaur is 82.
• Author Michael Ondaatje is 82.
• Actor Joe Pantoliano is 74.
• Photographer Nan Goldin is 72.
• Composer Hans Zimmer is 68.
• Actor Rachel Ward is 68.
• TV host-commentator Greg Gutfeld is 61.
• Actor-comedian Louis (loo-ee) C.K. is 58.
• Golfer Angel Cabrera is 56.
• Country singer Jennifer Nettles (Sugarland) is 51.
• Rapper 2 Chainz is 48.
• Singer Ruben Studdard is 47.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Yao Ming is 45.
• Singer-actor Jennifer Hudson is 44.
• Actor Alfie Allen is 39.
• Actor Emmy Rossum is 39.
• Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman is 36.
• Country singer-songwriter Kelsea Ballerini is 32.
• Actor Sydney Sweeney is 28.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday appealed a ruling blocking him from firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board.

The notice of appeal came hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House has insisted Trump, a Republican, has the right to fire Cook over over allegations raised by one of his appointees that she committed mortgage fraud related to two properties she bought before she joined the Fed.

The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority has allowed Trump to fire several board members of other independent agencies but has suggested that power has limitations at the Federal Reserve.

Cook’s lawyers have argued that firing her was unlawful because presidents can only fire Fed governors for cause, which has typically meant poor job performance or misconduct. The judge found the president’s removal power is limited to actions taken during a governor’s time in office.

Cook is accused of saying that both her properties, in Michigan and Georgia, were primary residences, which could have resulted in lower down payments and mortgage rates. Her lawsuit denied the allegations without providing details. Her attorneys said she should have gotten a chance to respond to them before getting fired.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the short-term interest rate the Fed controls more quickly. If Trump can replace Cook, he may be able to gain a 4-3 majority on the Fed’s governing board.

No president has sought to fire a Fed governor before. Economists prefer independent central banks because they can do unpopular things like lifting interest rates to combat inflation more easily than elected officials can.

Cook is set to participate in a Fed meeting next week. The meeting is expected to reduce its key short-term rate by a quarter-point to between 4% and 4.25%.

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

OREM, Utah (AP) — Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying young Republican voters, was shot and killed Wednesday at a Utah college event in what the governor called a political assassination carried out from a rooftop. A person of interest was in custody, officials said.

“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. “I want to be very clear this is a political assassination.”

Authorities did not immediately identify the person in custody, a motive or any criminal charges, but the circumstances of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of political violence in the United States that in the last several years has cut across the ideological spectrum. The FBI, which investigates such acts, was helping lead the inquiry, though officials said at this point they had no reason to believe a second person was involved.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong.” A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away. The Associated Press was able to confirm the videos were taken at Sorensen Center courtyard on the Utah Valley University campus.

The shooter, who Cox pledged would be held accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and fired from a roof on campus some distance away.

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions for an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” an audience member asked. Kirk responded, “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then a single shot rang out.

The death was announced on social media by Trump, who praised the 31-year-old Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the youth organization Turning Point USA, as “Great, and even Legendary.”

“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.

Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated and remained closed. Classes were canceled until further notice. Those still on campus were asked to stay in place until police officers could safely escort them off campus. Armed officers walked around the neighborhood bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for information on the shooter.

Officers were seen looking at a photo on their phones and showing it to people to see if they recognized a person of interest.

The event, billed as the first stop on Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour,” had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”

The shooting drew swift bipartisan condemnation, with Democratic officials joining Trump, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the violence.

“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last March hosted Kirk on his podcast, posted on X.

“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends,” said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district.

The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political violence that has cut across the political spectrum. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year.

Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was at Wednesday’s event, said in an interview on Fox News Channel that he heard one shot and saw Kirk go back.

“It seemed like it was a close shot,” Chaffetz said, who seemed shaken as he spoke.

He said there was a light police presence at the event and Kirk had some security but not enough.

“Utah is one of the safest places on the planet,” he said. “And so we just don’t have these types of things.”

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.

But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.

Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Michael Biesecker, Brian Slodysko, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 10, the 253rd day of 2025. There are 112 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 10, 2008, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was powered up for the first time, successfully firing the first beam of protons through its 17-mile underground ring tunnel.

Also on this date:

In 1608, John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.

In 1846, Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.

In 1960, running barefoot, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia won the Olympic marathon in Rome, becoming the first Black African to win Olympic gold.

In 1960, Hurricane Donna, a dangerous Category 4 storm blamed for 364 deaths, struck the Florida Keys.

In 1963, 20 Black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace.

In 1979, four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for a 1954 attack on the U.S. House of Representatives and a 1950 attempted killing of President Harry S. Truman were freed from prison after being granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter.

In 1987, Pope John Paul II arrived in Miami, where he was welcomed by President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan as he began a 10-day tour of the United States.

In 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. The proceedings would become a watershed moment in the discussion of sexual harassment when Anita Hill, a law professor who had previously worked under Thomas, came forward with allegations against him.

In 2005, teams of forensic workers and cadaver dogs fanned out across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2022, King Charles III was officially proclaimed Britain’s monarch in a pomp-filled ceremony two days after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Scientist-author Jared Diamond is 88.
• Singer José Feliciano is 80.
• Former Canadian first lady Margaret Trudeau is 77.
• Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is 76.
• Rock musician Joe Perry (Aerosmith) is 75.
• Actor Amy Irving is 72.
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, is 71.
• Actor-director Clark Johnson is 71.
• Actor Kate Burton is 68.
• Film director Chris Columbus is 67.
• Actor Colin Firth is 65.
• Cartoonist Alison Bechdel is 65.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson is 62.
• Actor Raymond Cruz is 61.
• Rapper Big Daddy Kane is 57.
• Film director Guy Ritchie is 57.
• Actor Ryan Phillippe (FIHL’-ih-pee) is 51.
• Ballerina Misty Copeland is 43.
• Former MLB All-Star Joey Votto is 42.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security announced Monday it is beginning a surge of immigration law enforcement in Chicago, dubbing it “Operation Midway Blitz” and claiming it will target “criminal illegal aliens” who have taken advantage of the city and state’s sanctuary policies.

The announcement comes more than two weeks after the Republican president began to say he was planning to target Chicago over crime, causing Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson to caution residents to prepare for potential immigration sweeps.

“For years, Governor (JB) Pritzker and his fellow sanctuary politicians released Tren de Aragua gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers on Chicago’s streets — putting American lives at risk and making Chicago a magnet for criminals,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “President Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem have a clear message: No city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”

Pritzker, the state’s two-term Democratic governor and vociferous critic of the Republican president, took to the social platform X to contend the ICE surge “isn’t about fighting crime.”

“That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks,” he wrote. “Instead of taking steps to work with us on public safety, the Trump administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisans.”

Johnson also said the city had “no notice of any enhanced immigration action.”

The Homeland Security statement marks the first official word from the Trump administration about increased immigration enforcement after weeks of Trump vacillating between vows of “going in” to Chicago with the potential deployment of National Guard troops to fight overall crime, to a stepped-up immigration enforcement role by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. ICE has secured an office at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago to serve as an operations hub for its activities.

There was no word on how long the ICE operation would last, and there was also no mention of whether Trump would deploy the National Guard to play a supporting role.

“We are concerned about potential militarized immigration enforcement without due process because of ICE’s track record of detaining and deporting American citizens and violating the human rights of hundreds of detainees,” Johnson said in a statement.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth said the ramped-up ICE activity was a waste of federal law enforcement resources, and she warned Trump was looking to “provoke a response to his un-American actions, hoping for images of chaos and violence to validate his lie that Chicago is an apocalyptic city in crisis and justify sending in the military to intimidate Americans.”

Despite the “blitz” announcement, it remained unclear Monday how extensive the actions were in the early going. Local officials and immigrant activists cited only a handful of arrests.

Advocates said they had confirmed ICE presence on the Southwest Side and at least three detentions of “community members in a stretch along Archer Avenue,” said Rey Wences, senior director of deportation defense at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

“We believe this operation signaled the beginning of ICE(‘s) full escalation in Chicago and Illinois,” Wences said, noting it came after “many other raids.”

“This has been happening, and it has been starting to get normalized in many of the places in the state and across the city, but this is not normal,” Wences said.

Although the Trump administration portrayed its actions as targeted toward arresting only immigrants who are criminals, studies have also shown that ICE has arrested thousands of Latinos with no criminal history in random locations across the nation.

Under Illinois’ sanctuary state policies, enacted by Pritzker’s Republican predecessor, one-term Gov. Bruce Rauner, Illinois law enforcement cannot cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents unless they have a detainment warrant issued by a judge. ICE routinely uses an administrative detainment warrant that it issues on its own.

The Trump administration has been previously rebuffed in challenges to the state’s sanctuary policy, with the courts noting that immigration enforcement is the purview of the federal government.

Trump set the stage for the operation with a social media post Saturday morning depicting military helicopters flying over the city’s lakefront skyline using the title “Chipocalypse Now.”

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” Trump posted on his Truth Social account, altering the famous phrase from the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now,” about the smell of “Napalm.” In the post, Trump was depicted in U.S. Army fatigues and sunglasses and wearing a Stetson U.S. Cavalry hat like the lieutenant colonel portrayed in the movie by actor Robert Duvall.

“Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump wrote, a day after signing an executive order to rename the Department of Defense to its pre-1949 title.

Hours before the DHS announcement, Trump on Monday morning once again urged Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential aspirant, to call the White House for federal help to request National Guard assistance with city crime. The governor has repeatedly vowed he will not make such a request because it is not necessary, adding that Trump is trying to normalize the sight of military on city streets as part of the president’s moves toward authoritarian rule from the White House.

On his Truth Social platform, Trump cited six shooting deaths recorded in the city over the weekend, as well as other murders in recent weeks, as he criticized Pritzker and Johnson for inaction.

Just days after his “Chipocalypse Now” post, which he backed off a day later by saying it wasn’t directed at the city but at criminals, Trump sought to cajole Chicago residents into supporting a federal intervention.

“Governor Pritzker just stated that he doesn’t want Federal Government HELP! WHY??? What is wrong with this guy, and the 5% in Polls Mayor. I want to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them. Only the Criminals will be hurt!” Trump wrote on Monday morning.

“We can move fast and stop this madness. The City and State have not been able to do the job. People of Illinois should band together and DEMAND PROTECTION. IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE!!! ACT NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!” he wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

Later, speaking at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., he told the audience, “We’re waiting for a call from Chicago. We’ll fix Chicago,” as he cited reduced crime in the District of Columbia after he federalized law enforcement there, something he cannot do in the individual states.

“We could do the same thing in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles,” Trump said.

“I don’t know why Chicago isn’t calling us, saying, please give us help when you have, over just a short period of time, 50 murders and hundreds of people shot, and then you have a governor that stands up and says how crime is just fine,” Trump said, before explaining one major political reason for continuing the rhetoric.

“It’s really crazy,” the Republican president said of Democrats, “but we’re bringing back law and order to our country.”

But faith leaders and immigration advocates in Chicago continued to push back against Trump’s narrative that Chicago is crime-ridden and rallied in support of a handful of individuals believed to have been detained by federal agents on Sunday.

Wences described the detentions as “abductions,” and said they were “seemingly random, with agents profiling and approaching them on the street.”

Among those was a street vendor selling flowers on a busy intersection in the Archer Heights neighborhood. He was arrested by three men wearing vests that read “Police Federal Agent.” They were in two vehicles, including a dark Subaru with a Missouri license plate. ICE had not confirmed the arrest as of Monday evening.

Gissele Garcia, 26, pulled over her car as she was driving home from the grocery store when she saw the commotion in the parking lot of a Honda City car dealership on South Archer Avenue and South Pulaski Road. The West Lawn resident approached with her phone up, filming the encounter. She tried getting the street vendor’s name and asked him if he had any family she could call.

Speaking in Spanish, the man said he didn’t know his relatives’ phone numbers.

“It seemed — I don’t know how to put this — like he had given up,” she told the Tribune Sunday.

By Monday morning, around 50 people shouted “faith over fear,” in Daley Plaza in response to the escalating threat. The event was led by leaders of the Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), LIVE FREE Illinois and New Life Centers.

Speakers said there were other ways to improve Chicago than sending in federal agents, including federal spending on health care and education.

“This is not America,” said rally attendee Donald Nye, 68 of Downers Grove. “This is not what my grandson is gonna grow up in. I got a 4-year-old grandson and I’m not gonna allow him to grow up with this. I mean, this is not the way I grew (up).”

Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella, Alice Yin and Adriana Perez contributed.

By JEFF McMURRAY and LINLEY SANDERS

CHICAGO (AP) — When Elizabeth Rivera’s phone would ring during the overnight shift, it was usually because the bus didn’t show up again and one of her three kids needed a ride to school.

After leaving early from her job at a Houston-area Amazon warehouse several times, Rivera was devastated — but not surprised — when she was fired.

“Right now, I’m kind of depressed about it,” said Rivera, 42. “I’m depressed because of the simple fact that it’s kind of hard to find a job, and there’s bills I have to pay. But at the same time, the kids have to go to school.”

Rivera is far from the only parent forced to choose between their job and their kids’ education, according to a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and HopSkipDrive, a company that relies on artificial intelligence and a network of drivers using their own vehicles to help school districts address transportation challenges.

Most parents drive their children to school, the survey found, and those responsibilities can have a major impact.

About one-third of parents say taking their kids to school has caused them to miss work, according to the poll. Roughly 3 in 10 say they’ve been prevented from seeking or taking work opportunities. And 11% say school transportation has even caused them to lose a job.

Mothers are especially likely to say school transportation needs have interfered with their jobs and opportunities.

Smaller paychecks, bigger vulnerability

The impact falls disproportionately on lower-income families.

Around 4 in 10 parents with a household income below $100,000 a year said they’ve missed work due to pick-up needs, compared with around 3 in 10 parents with a household income of $100,000 or more.

Meredyth Saieed and her two children, ages 7 and 10, used to live in a homeless shelter in North Carolina. Saieed said the kids’ father has been incarcerated since May.

Although the family qualified for government-paid transportation to school, Saieed said the kids would arrive far too early or leave too late under that system. So, she decided to drop them off and pick them up herself.

She had been working double shifts as a bartender and server at a French restaurant in Wilmington but lost that job due to repeatedly missing the dinner rush for pickups.

“Sometimes when you’ve got kids and you don’t have a village, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said Saieed, 30. “As a mom, you just find a way around it.”

The latest obstacle: a broken-down car. She couldn’t afford to repair it, so she sold it to a junk yard. She’s hoping this year the school will offer transportation that works better for her family.

Not all kids have access to a school bus

Although about half of parents living in rural areas and small towns say their kids still take a bus to school, that fell to about one-third of parents in urban areas.

A separate AP-NORC/HopSkipDrive survey of school administrators found that nearly half said school bus driver shortages were a “major problem” in their district.

Some school systems don’t offer bus service. In other cases, the available options don’t work for families.

The community in Long Island, New York, where police Officer Dorothy Criscuolo’s two children attend school provides bus service, but she doesn’t want them riding it because they’ve been diagnosed as neurodivergent.

“I can’t have my kids on a bus for 45 minutes, with all the screaming and yelling, and then expect them to be OK once they get to school, be regulated and learn,” said Criscuolo, 49. “I think it’s impossible.”

So Criscuolo drops them off, and her wife picks them up. It doesn’t interfere much with their work, but it does get in the way of Criscuolo’s sleep. Because her typical shift is 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and her children start at different times at different schools, it’s not uncommon for her to get only three hours of sleep a day during the school year.

The transportation burden falls heavier on moms

Mothers are most often the ones driving their children to and from school, with 68% saying they typically take on this task, compared with 57% of fathers.

Most mothers, 55%, say they have missed work, have lost jobs or were kept from personal or professional opportunities because of school transportation needs, compared with 45% of dads.

Syrina Franklin says she didn’t have a choice. The father of her two high school-age children is deceased, so she has to take them and a 5-year-old grandson to different schools on Chicago’s South Side.

After she was late to work more than 10 times, she lost her job as a mail sorter at the post office and turned to driving for Uber and Instacart to make ends meet.

“Most of the kids, they have people that help out with dropping them off and picking them up,” said Franklin, 41. “They have their father, a grandmother, somebody in the family helps.”

When both parents are able to pitch in, school pickup and drop-off duties can be easier.

Computer programmer Jonathan Heiner takes his three kids to school in Bellbrook, Ohio, and his wife picks them up.

“We are definitely highly privileged because of the fact that I have a very flexible job and she’s a teacher, so she gets off when school gets out,” said Heiner, 45. “Not a lot of people have that.”

Parents want more options

Although the use of school buses has been declining for years across the U.S., many parents would like to see schools offer other options.

Roughly 4 in 10 parents said getting their kids to school would be “much easier” or “somewhat easier” if there were more school bus routes, school-arranged transportation services or improved pedestrian and bike infrastructure near school. Around a third cited a desire for earlier or later start times, or centralized pick-up and drop-off locations for school buses.

Joanna McFarland, the CEO and co-founder of HopSkipDrive, said districts need to reclaim the responsibility of making sure students have a ride to school.

“I don’t think the way to solve this is to ask parents to look for innovative ideas,” McFarland said. “I think we really need to come up with innovative ideas systematically and institutionally.”

In Houston, Rivera is waiting on a background check for another job. In the meantime, she’s found a new solution for her family’s school transportation needs.

Her 25-year-old daughter, who still works at Amazon on a day shift, has moved back into the home and is handling drop-offs for her three younger siblings.

“It’s going very well,” Rivera said.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 838 U.S. adults who are parents of school-age children was conducted June 30-July 11, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.

___

Sanders reported from Washington.

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

KINI, Mexico — On a hot June night Jesús Cruz at last returned to Kini, the small town in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula where he spent the first 17 years of his life.

His sister greeted him with tearful hugs. The next morning she took him to see their infirm mother, who whispered in his ear: “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

After decades away, Cruz was finally home.

Yet he was not home.

So much of what he loved was 3,000 miles away in Southern California, where he resided for 33 years until immigration agents swarmed the car wash where he worked and hauled him away in handcuffs.

Cruz missed his friends and Booka, his little white dog. His missed his house, his car, his job.

But most of all, he missed his wife, Noemi Ciau, and their four children. Ciau worked nights, so Cruz was in charge of getting the kids fed, clothed and to and from school and music lessons, a chaotic routine that he relished because he knew he was helping them get ahead.

“I want them to have a better life,” he said. “Not the one I had.”

Now that he was back in Mexico, living alone in an empty house that belonged to his in-laws, he and Ciau, who is a U.S. permanent resident, faced an impossible decision.

Should she and the children join Cruz in Mexico?

Or stay in Inglewood?

Cruz and Ciau both had families that had been broken by the border, and they didn’t want that for their kids. In the months since Cruz had been detained, his eldest daughter, 16-year-old Dhelainy, had barely slept and had stopped playing her beloved piano, and his youngest son, 5-year-old Gabriel, had started acting out. Esther, 14, and Angel, 10, were hurting, too.

But bringing four American kids to Mexico didn’t seem fair, either. None of them spoke Spanish, and the schools in Kini didn’t compare with those in the U.S. Dhelainy was a few years from graduating high school, and she dreamed of attending the University of California and then Harvard Law.

There was also the question of money. At the car wash, Cruz earned $220 a day. But the day rate for laborers in Kini is just $8. Ciau had a good job at Los Angeles International Airport, selling cargo space for an international airline. It seemed crazy to give that up.

Ciau wanted to hug her husband again. She wanted to know what it would feel like to have the whole family in Mexico. So in early August she packed up the kids and surprised Cruz with a visit.

Kini lies an hour outside of Merida in a dense tropical forest. Like many people here, Cruz grew up speaking Spanish and a dialect of Maya and lived in a one-room, thatched-roof house. He, his parents and his five brothers and sisters slept in hammocks crisscrossed from the rafters.

His parents were too poor to buy shoes for their children, so when he was a boy Cruz left school to work alongside his father, caring for cows and crops. At 17 he joined a wave of young men leaving Kini to work in the United States.

He arrived in Inglewood, where a cousin lived, in 1992, just as Los Angeles was erupting in protest over the police beating of Rodney King.

Cruz, soft-spoken and hardworking, was overwhelmed by the big city but found refuge in a green stucco apartment complex that had become a home away from home for migrants from Kini, who cooked and played soccer together in the evenings.

Eventually he fell for a young woman living there: Ciau, whose parents had brought her from Kini as a young girl, and who obtained legal status under an amnesty extended by President Reagan. They married when she turned 18.

As their family grew, they developed rituals. When one of the kids made honor roll, they’d celebrate at Dave & Buster’s. Each summer they’d visit Disneyland. And every weekend they’d dine at Casa Gambino, a classic Mexican restaurant with vinyl booths, piña coladas and a bison head mounted on the wall. On Fridays, Cruz and Ciau left the kids with her parents and went on a date.

As the father of four Americans, Cruz was eligible for a green card. But the attorneys he consulted warned that he would have to apply from Mexico and that the wait could last years.

Cruz didn’t want to leave his children. So he stayed. When President Trump was reelected last fall on a vow to carry out mass deportations, he tried not to worry. The government, he knew, usually targeted immigrants who had committed crimes, and his record was spotless. But the Trump administration took a different approach.

On June 8, masked federal agents swarmed Westchester Hand Wash. Cruz said they slammed him into the back of a patrol car with such force and shackled his wrists so tightly that he was left with bruises across his body and a serious shoulder injury.

Ciau, who was helping Esther buy a dress for a middle school honors ceremony, heard about the raid and raced over. She had been at the car wash just hours earlier, bringing lunch to her husband and his colleagues. Now it was eerily empty.

Cruz was transferred to a jail in El Paso, where he says he was denied requests to speak to a lawyer or call his family.

One day, an agent handed him a document and told him to sign. The agent said that if Cruz fought his case, he would remain in detention for up to a year and be deported anyway. Signing the document — which said he would voluntarily return to Mexico — meant he could avoid a deportation order, giving him a better shot at fixing his papers in the future.

Cruz couldn’t read the text without his glasses. He didn’t know that he very likely would have been eligible for release on bond because of his family ties to the U.S. But he was in pain and afraid and so he signed.

Returning to Kini after decades away was surreal.

Sprawling new homes with columns, tile roofs and other architectural flourishes imported by people who had lived in the U.S. rose from what had once been fields. There were new faces, too, including a cohort of young men who appraised Cruz with curiosity and suspicion. With his polo shirts and running shoes, he stood out in a town where most wore flip-flops and as few clothes as possible in the oppressive heat.

Cruz found work on a small ranch. Before dawn, he would pedal out there on an old bicycle, clearing weeds and feeding cows, the world silent except for the rustle of palm leaves. In all his years in the big city, he had missed the tranquility of these lands.

He had missed his mother, too. She has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. Some days, she could speak, and would ask about his family and whether Cruz was eating enough. Other days, they would sit in silence, him occasionally leaning over to kiss her forehead.

He always kept his phone near, in case Ciau or one of the kids called. He tried his best to parent from afar, mediating arguments and reminding the kids to be kind to their mother. He tracked his daughters via GPS when they left the neighborhood, and phoned before bed to make sure everyone had brushed their teeth.

He worried about them, especially Dhelainy, a talented musician who liked to serenade him on the piano while he cooked dinner. The burden of caring for the younger siblings had fallen on her. Since Cruz had been taken, she hadn’t touched the piano once.

During one conversation, Dhelainy let it slip that they were coming to Mexico. Cruz surged with joy, then shuddered at the thought of having to say goodbye again. He picked them up at the airport.

That first evening, they shared pizza and laughed and cried. Gabriel, the only family member who had never been to Mexico, was intrigued by the thick forest and the climate, playing outside in the monsoon rain. For the first time in months, Dhelainy slept through the night.

“We finally felt like a happy family again,” Ciau said. But as soon as she and the kids arrived, they started counting the hours to when they’d have to go back.

During the heat of the day, the family hid inside, lounging in hammocks. They were also dodging unwanted attention. It seemed everywhere they went, someone asked Cruz to relive his arrest, and he would oblige, describing cold nights in detention with nothing to keep warm but a plastic blanket.

But at night, after the sky opened up, and then cleared, they went out.

It was fair time in Kini, part of an annual celebration to honor the Virgin Mary. A small circus had been erected and a bull ring constructed of wooden posts and leaves. A bright moon rose as the family took their seats and the animal charged out of its pen, agitated, and barreled toward the matador’s pink cape.

Cruz turned to his kids. When he was growing up, he told them, the matador killed the bull, whose body was cut up and sold to spectators. Now the fights ended without violence — with the bull lassoed and returned to pasture.

It was one of the ways that Mexico had modernized, he felt. He felt pride at how far Mexico had come, recently electing its first female president.

The bull ran by, close enough for the family to hear his snorts and see his body heave with breath.

“Are you scared?” Esther asked Gabriel.

Wide-eyed, the boy shook his head no. But he reached out to touch his father’s hand.

Later, as the kids slept, Cruz and Ciau stayed up, dancing cumbia deep into the night.

The day before Ciau and the kids were scheduled to leave, the family went to the beach. Two of Ciau’s nieces came. It was the first time Gabriel had met a cousin. The girls spoke little English, but they played well with Gabriel, showing him games on their phones. (For days after, he would giddily ask his mother when he could next see them.)

That evening, the air was heavy with moisture.

The kids went into the bedroom to rest. Cruz and Ciau sat at the kitchen table, holding hands and wiping away tears.

They had heard of a U.S. employer who, having lost so many workers to immigration raids, was offering to pay a smuggler to bring people across the border. Cruz and Ciau agreed that was too risky.

They had just paid a lawyer to file a lawsuit saying Cruz had been coerced into accepting voluntary departure and asking a judge to order his return to the U.S. so that he could apply for relief from removal. The first hearing was scheduled for mid-September.

Cruz wanted to return to the U.S. But he was increasingly convinced that the family could make it work in Mexico. “We were poor before,” he told Ciau. “We can be poor again.”

Ciau wasn’t sure. Her children had big — and expensive — ambitions.

Dhelainy had proposed staying in the U.S. with her grandparents if the rest of the family moved back. Cruz and Ciau talked about the logistics of that, and Ciau vowed to explore whether the younger kids could remain enrolled in U.S. schools, but switch to online classes.

When the rain began, Cruz got up and closed the door.

The next morning, Cruz would not accompany his family to the airport. It would be too hard, he thought, “like when somebody gives you something you’ve always wanted, and then suddenly takes it away.”

Gabriel wrapped his arms around his father’s waist, his small body convulsed with tears: “I love you.”

“It’s OK, baby,” Cruz said. “I love you, too.”

“Thank you for coming,” he said to Ciau. He kissed her. And then they were gone.

That afternoon, he walked the streets of Kini. The fair was wrapping up. Workers sweating in the heat were dismantling the circus rides and packing them onto the backs of trucks.

He thought back to a few evenings earlier, when they had celebrated Dhelainy’s birthday.

The family had planned to host a joint sweet 16 and quinceñera party for her and Esther in July. They had rented an event hall, hired a band and sent out invitations. After Cruz was detained, they called the party off.

They celebrated Dhelainy’s Aug. 8 birthday at the house in Kini instead. A mariachi played the Juan Gabriel classic, “Amor Eterno.”

“You are my sun and my calm,” the mariachis sang as Cruz swayed with his daughter. “You are my life / My eternal love.”

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Today is Thursday, Sept. 4, the 247th day of 2025. There are 118 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 4, 1949, more than 140 people were injured following a performance by singer Paul Robeson in Peekskill, New York, as an anti-Communist mob attacked departing concertgoers.

Also on this date:

In 1781, Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers under the leadership of Governor Felipe de Neve.

In 1944, during World War II, British troops liberated Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered Arkansas National Guardsmen to prevent nine Black students from entering all-white Central High School in Little Rock.

In 1972, U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz became the first to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games, winning a seventh gold at the Munich Olympics in the 400-meter medley relay.

In 1972, the longest-running game show in U.S. history, “The Price is Right,” debuted on CBS.

In 1974, the United States established diplomatic relations with East Germany.

In 1998, Google was founded by Stanford University Ph.D. students Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

In 2016, elevating the “saint of the gutters” to one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors, Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa, praising her radical dedication to society’s outcasts and her courage in shaming world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they themselves created.”

In 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on a day that saw rancorous exchanges between Democrats and Republicans.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Golf Hall of Famer Raymond Floyd is 83.
• Golf Hall of Famer Tom Watson is 76.
• Actor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs is 72.
• Actor Khandi Alexander is 68.
• Actor-comedian Damon Wayans Sr. is 65.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza is 57.
• DJ-musician-producer Mark Ronson is 50.
• Actor Wes Bentley is 47.
• Actor Max Greenfield is 46.
• Singer-actor Beyoncé is 44.
• Actor-comedian Whitney Cummings is 43.
• Actor-comedian Kyle Mooney (TV: “Saturday Night Live”) is 41.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will direct federal law enforcement intervention to Chicago and Baltimore, despite local officials in both places opposing such moves.

Asked by reporters in the Oval Office if he had decided to send National Guard troops to Chicago, Trump said, “We’re going in,” but added. “I didn’t say when.”

Trump has already sent National Guard troops into Washington and federalized the nation’s capital’s police force. More recently, he’s said he’s planning similar moves in other cities, particularly those run by Democratic officials.

Trump said he’d like Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to call him and say “send in the troops.” Pritzker has opposed the move.

“If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it.” Trump said. “Now, we’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it.”

He added that he has an “obligation to protect this country, and that includes Baltimore.”

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press/Report For America

The Posse Comitatus Act is a nearly 150-year-old federal law that limits the U.S. military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. At its core, experts say the law reflects America’s long-standing belief that law enforcement should remain in civilian hands, separate from military power.

President Donald Trump has tested the law’s limits in the first few months of his second term, as he expands the footprint of the U.S. military on domestic soil.

Here’s what to know about the law.

Posse Comitatus Act stops military from enforcing US law

The criminal statute prohibits military enforcement of domestic law. It also prevents the military from investigating local crimes, overriding local law enforcement or compelling certain behavior.

There are key exceptions. Congress can vote to suspend the act, or the president can order it suspended in defense of the Constitution. The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy troops during invasions, rebellions or when local authorities can’t maintain order.

National Guard members are under state authority and commanded by governors, so they’re generally exempt. However, the Posse Comitatus Act applies to National Guard forces when they’re “federalized,” meaning the president puts them under his control. That’s what Trump did in California over the governor’s objections.

The military is allowed to share intelligence and certain resources if there’s an overlap with civilian law enforcement jurisdiction, according to the Library of Congress. There’s also an exception for the U.S. Coast Guard, which has some law enforcement responsibilities.

Law was enacted after the Reconstruction era

The law was enacted in 1878 following the post-Civil War era known as Reconstruction. At that time, segregationist lawmakers didn’t want the U.S. military from blocking Jim Crow laws that imposed racial segregation.

But the spirit of the law has roots going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, when the nation’s founders were scarred by the British monarchy’s absolute military control, said William C. Banks, a professor at the Syracuse University College of Law.

“We have a tradition in the United States — which is more a norm than a law — that we want law enforcement to be conducted by civilians, not the military,” Banks said.

Courts have rarely interpreted the Posse Comitatus Act, leaving much of its scope shaped by executive branch policy and military regulations rather than judicial precedent.

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, notes that this lack of legal rulings makes the law unusual.

“There is no authoritative precedent on exactly where these lines are, and so that’s why over the years the military’s own interpretation has been so important,” Vladeck said.

New tests for the law

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on immigration raids in Los Angeles this summer. The ruling does not require the remaining troops to withdraw.

Trump administration attorneys argued the law doesn’t apply because the troops were protecting federal officers, not enforcing laws.

Trump also sent 800 troops to Washington D.C., saying without substantiation that they were needed to reduce crime in the “lawless” city.

In Washington, a federal district, the president is already in charge of the National Guard and can legally deploy troops for 30 days without congressional approval.

Trump has since discussed sending the National Guard to other Democratic-led cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York.

Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.