A Coloradan who purchased an abandoned Douglas County storage unit found that it contained 1.7 million counterfeit fentanyl pills, plus several pounds of meth and fentanyl powder, law enforcement officials said Monday.

The discovery amounted to a record seizure of fentanyl in Colorado, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the sixth-largest in U.S. history.

The unit was purchased at auction after its previous renter lapsed on its payments.

The new owner then called law enforcement, including the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, after opening it to discover the pills. The unit also contained 12 kilograms of fentanyl powder and two and a half pounds of methamphetamine. Law enforcement subsequently learned that the unit’s previous owner had been arrested by the DEA in April, which is why the unit’s rent went unpaid.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s at least 50 times more powerful than morphine. While it has legitimate medical uses, illicitly created fentanyl has become the dominant opioid on the U.S. drug market, and it fueled an overdose crisis that surged in Colorado and across the rest of the United States. The street version of the drug is primarily pressed into pill form, typically to mimic the look of other legitimate opioid pills.

“I want to thank the citizen who reported this discovery, the storage facility staff for their cooperation, and the deputies who responded quickly and professionally,” said Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said in a statement. “Let me send a strong and unmistakable message: fentanyl and illegal narcotics will not be tolerated in Douglas County.”

The powder seized in the operation was enough to create another six million pills, the DEA said.

6 charged in massive drug bust with enough fentanyl to kill 1.5 million people

Progress on overdose deaths could be jeopardized by federal cuts, critics say

Union Township woman arrested for alleged sale of narcotics

Months after federal officials demanded voter data from Colorado and several other states, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and several peers are trying to determine what exactly the Trump administration is doing with the data.

“As Secretaries of State and chief election officials of our respective states, we write to express our immense concern with recent reporting that the Department of Justice has shared voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, and to seek clarity on whether DOJ and DHS actively misled election officials regarding the uses of voter data,” Griswold and nine other secretaries of state wrote in a letter sent Tuesday morning.

It was addressed to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, and Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary.

Bondi’s Justice Department sent letters to Colorado and other states in the spring asking for voter rolls and, in some cases, it has sought more detailed data, including partial social security numbers and birth dates.

The state officials’ new letter asks Bondi and Noem whether the voter rolls were shared with Noem’s department, which has served as the tip of the spear in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, or any others. The secretaries of state who signed on are all Democrats.

Colorado provided some of the information requested by the Justice Department as required by law, Griswold said in an interview Monday. Other states, particularly those tasked with turning over more extensive voter data, refused; six of them have since been sued by the federal government.

Griswold said federal officials had provided shifting answers on whether the Homeland Security Department had been given access to the data that had been turned over to the DOJ, including from Colorado.

Heather Honey, the agency’s deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, told the secretaries of state in September that DHS hadn’t received or asked for the data, according to the secretaries’ letter. But the next day, the agency confirmed to Stateline that it was collaborating with the Justice Department to “scrub aliens from voter rolls.”

Six weeks later, on Halloween, the agency posted an administrative update indicating it was expanding a tool — used previously to ensure federal benefits don’t go to immigrants without proper legal status — to check voting rolls.

“We would like the attorney general and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to explain what they’re doing collecting mass voter data on American voters,” Griswold said. “It also looks like the DOJ or DHS misled secretaries of state.”

Attempts to reach both federal departments for comment Tuesday were not successful.

Griswold said some of her staff members also had a brief conversation with officials from the Justice Department’s criminal division earlier this summer. The federal officials asked if Colorado election officials had a way to report election crimes to the state attorney general, Griswold’s office said. State officials replied that they did, and the conversation ended.

The state officials request a response from Bondi and Noem by Dec. 1.

In addition to Colorado, the secretaries of state from California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Maine, Vermont, Oregon and Washington also signed the letter.

 

By Lisa Rein, Meryl KornfieldThe Washington Post

The Social Security Administration has abandoned plans to block thousands of older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits after an uproar that reached senior officials in the Trump White House, according to people familiar with the decision.

The agency is also halting a plan to use modern labor market data to help judge whether disability claimants can work, a project that has cost the federal government more than $350 million so far. The new data would have replaced a long-outdated jobs database that until recently included obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks.

The policy affecting older people would have fundamentally altered who qualifies for the two federal disability programs by eliminating or limiting a person’s age as a factor to consider. It fulfilled a long-held goal of Trump officials to tighten the federal safety net and had been on track to be announced in the Federal Register as soon as December.

But widespread opposition mounted following an article in The Washington Post in October that reported the new policy could result in a loss of future benefits for hundreds of thousands of people.

Jason Turkish – an attorney representing disabled people and co-founder of the advocacy group Alliance for America’s Promise – said SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and other administration officials assured him in meetings over the past week that the proposal would not move forward. A former Social Security executive familiar with the disability program confirmed that Bisignano has scrapped the proposed rule.

“The commissioner took a decisive, unambiguous role in concretely ruling out that this mega-regulation would move forward,” Turkish said.

A White House spokesperson said that “the White House has not seen any such proposal. However, President Trump remains fully committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security while making it easier for millions of Americans to engage with the Social Security Administration.”

Social Security officials did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

The about-face follows months of turmoil at the agency that issues retirement and disability benefits to 72 million Americans. Thousands of staff cuts, voluntary departures and reassignments, service failures, and an aggressive takeover by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service early in the Trump administration have led to widespread customer complaints and low morale in the agency’s workforce.

Social Security evaluates disability claims by considering age, work experience and education to determine if someone can adjust to other types of work. Applicants over 50 have a better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a limitation in adapting to many jobs.

But with prodding from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought earlier this year, the agency began to consider eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to 60, according to people familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner at the time, instructed officials to begin drafting the new rule shortly after he took office.

Advocates for the disabled and elderly applauded the decision to back off.

“Social Security disability insurance is a critical lifeline for people who find themselves no longer able to work,” Jenn Jones, vice president of financial security for AARP, said in a statement. “We appreciate Commissioner Bisignano’s commitment to a careful and transparent process, because any changes to [disability insurance] can impact older Americans across the country who rely on Social Security for their independence and livelihoods.”

A cut in disability benefits could have significant political consequences, advocates and lawmakers have warned, pointing to Trump’s campaign promise to not touch Social Security.

“I’m incredibly pleased to see Commissioner Bisignano and the administration decided not to pursue proposed cuts to Social Security’s disability programs – cuts which would have been out of step not only with what the American people want, but also with President Trump’s repeated promises not to cut Social Security,” Rebecca Vallas, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance, said in a statement.

Conservatives have long argued that since Americans are living longer and fewer have jobs that require manual labor, many physically disabled workers could adapt to desk work, with the result that fewer people would qualify for disability benefits. Social Security had prepared a similar rule at the end of the first Trump administration but ran out of time to formally propose it.

To determine the jobs a disability applicant might be able to do, Social Security has long relied on a database compiled by the Labor Department, which abandoned the list more than 30 years ago as the economy shifted away from blue-collar work to information and services. Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner during the Biden administration, removed many of those jobs from consideration after scrutiny from lawmakers following a Post investigation in 2022.

But the agency did not replace them with a sophisticated database of jobs in the modern U.S. economy compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the course of years. Among the Trump administration’s concerns with using the new data is that younger disabled people with cognitive and mental impairments would probably qualify for fewer jobs, potentially leading more of them to be awarded benefits, the former Social Security executive said.

According to two former officials, starting next year the agency planned to develop a database using the BLS data to help determine which jobs, if any, someone seeking benefits could perform. Disability advocates say they worry that such a database would be programmed to come up with a vast array of jobs – particularly if advancing age was no longer a limiting factor – and would end up denying benefits to tens of thousands of claimants every year.

Michelle Spadafore, a New York-based disability attorney, said that advocates were most concerned about the proposal that could have made more older Americans ineligible for disability and are willing to wait until the agency moves forward with a modern jobs database.

“I don’t know if there’s a way to not throw out the baby with the bathwater,” she said. “The threat of taking age out of the equation is so great that even though we want to see modernization of job data, we’re willing to wait on that.”

Today is Sunday, Nov. 23, the 327th day of 2025. There are 38 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 23,2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president of Liberia, becoming Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state. She guided her nation through recovery after its exit from a decade-long civil war.

Also on this date:

In 1863, thousands of Union soldiers under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant marched out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and battled Confederate forces through Nov. 25, forcing their retreat into Georgia in a significant blow to the South in the American Civil War.

In 1939, early in World War II, the British armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi was on patrol when it was shelled and sunk in an engagement with two German warships southeast of Iceland, leaving more than 200 dead aboard the Rawalpindi and only a few dozen survivors.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25 a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1971, the People’s Republic of China was seated in the United Nations Security Council.

In 1980, an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.

In 1984, Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie completed one of the most famous passes in college football history, connecting with Gerald Phelan for a 48-yard touchdown with no time left on the clock as Boston College defeated the Miami Hurricanes 47-45.

In 1996, a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean near the Comoro Islands, killing 125 of the 175 people on board, including all three hijackers.

In 2006, former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko (leet-vee-NYEN’-koh) died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2008, the U.S. government unveiled a bold plan to rescue Citigroup, injecting a fresh $20 billion into the troubled firm as well as guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars in risky assets.

In 2011, Yemen’s authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh (AH’-lee ahb-DUH’-luh sah-LEH’) agreed to step down amid a fierce uprising to oust him after 33 years in power. (After formally ceding power in February 2012, he was killed in 2017 by Houthi rebels who were once his allies.)

In 2024, Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut killed at least 20 people and wounded dozens more, the latest strikes in renewed fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants. (A U.S.-brokered cease-fire would be reached on Nov. 27, with sporadic violations of that truce for months afterward.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Franco Nero (“Django”) is 84.
• Singer Bruce Hornsby is 71.
• TV journalist Robin Roberts (“Good Morning America”) is 65.
• Composer Nicolas Bacri is 64.
• Poet and author Jennifer Michael Hecht is 60.
• Olympic gold medal sprinter Asafa Powell is 43.
• Ice hockey player Nicklas Bäckström is 38.
• Singer-actor Miley Cyrus is 33.

By Melissa Nann Burke, mburke@detroitnews.com

Washington ― U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin has been assigned around-the-clock police protection, her office said, following calls by President Donald Trump on Thursday morning that the Michigan lawmaker should be arrested and possibly put to death over a video that she made with other Democrats.

Slotkin told NBC News that she has received “hundreds and hundreds, if not, you know, closer to 1,000 threats” since the video first picked up traction in the news earlier in the week and then Trump suggested on Thursday that her message was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

Now, a U.S. Capitol Police officer is following Slotkin around everywhere she goes to ensure her safety, her office said late Thursday.

The Holly Democrat had posted online the video recording of Democratic veterans in Congress on Tuesday. The video features Slotkin and five other lawmakers who contended that the Trump administration is pitting the uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against U.S. citizens, and urged them not to follow unspecified illegal orders: “Don’t give up the ship.”

Trump accuses Slotkin, other Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’

Trump lashed out at the Democratic lawmakers on Thursday in a torrent of posts on his Truth Social platform.

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” Trump wrote. “Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.”

The second-term Republican president followed up with other posts about the Democratic lawmakers: “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, told reporters Thursday that he’d requested extra security for Slotkin and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was also in the video. Schumer railed against Trump’s language toward the lawmakers on the Senate floor, saying the president’s language “is an outright threat, and it’s deadly serious.”

“When Donald Trump uses the language of execution and treason, some of his supporters may very well listen,” Schumer said.

The other Democrats in the video with Slotkin besides Kelly were U.S. Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire.

Trump’s social media comments suggesting Slotkin and the other Democratic lawmakers could face execution for their remarks prompted the president’s spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, to argue the lawmakers had encouraged service members “to defy the President’s lawful orders.”

At a White House briefing Thursday with reporters, Leavitt said “no” when asked whether the president wants members of Congress executed.

“The president expects his Cabinet officials in the administration to follow the law and to demand accountability and hold people accountable for their dangerous rhetoric,” Leavitt said. “And I would just add that if this were Republican members of Congress who were encouraging members of the military and members of our United States government to defy orders from the president and from the chain of command, this entire room would be up in arms. But instead, it is the other way around, and I think that’s quite telling.”

 

By JOHN HANNA and JACK DURA The Associated Press

CARBONDALE, Kan. (AP) — Four law enforcement officers were shot Saturday morning while responding to a domestic violence call at a home in a rural area south of Topeka, and a 22-year-old male suspect died of gunshot wounds at the scene.

The suspect’s 77-year-old grandfather also was wounded in the gunfire but he and the law enforcement officers are all expected to recover, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said.

The shooting occurred around 10:30 a.m. Three Osage County sheriff’s deputies and one Kansas Highway Patrol trooper were shot, the KBI’s director and the patrol’s superintendent said.

Two deputies underwent surgery at a Topeka hospital and were in good condition, the KBI said, and the third deputy was discharged. The trooper was transferred from the same hospital to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.

“After being on scene less than 10 minutes, gunfire erupted,” patrol Superintendent Erik Smith said during a news conference at the Carbondale City Library.

Carbondale is a town of about 1,300 people about 16 miles south of Topeka, the state capital, off Highway 75.

The shooting stunned neighbors John and Heather Roberts, who live about a mile north of where it occurred on the same two-lane road. They never sensed any problem in any of the family members, such as drugs, alcohol abuse or violence, and they said the suspect’s grandmother gave Christian books to area children she knew.

They said it is not uncommon to see law enforcement vehicles on the road outside their home because they live at the line between Osage County, home to Carbondale, and Shawnee County, home to Topeka, and vehicles turn around there or the counties exchange prisoners.

John Roberts said he was putting siding on his barn when two law enforcement vehicles flew down the road in the morning.

“Both of them were running, I would say, well over 100 miles an hour as they went by,” he said. “Then the city of Topeka officers started going by. That’s when I started to really get concerned.”

He said the suspect visited the shop he has at his home to return tools and was “a good kid.” Roberts added that many families in the area own guns because hunting is a common hobby, and that was the case with this family.

“I love the family. They’re great people,” Heather Roberts said, adding that she and her husband were praying for the wounded officers too.

She said every time the suspect visited their home, he would give her a hug and he was “very respectful.”

“I don’t know what snapped in him today, but his grandparents loved him very much,” she said.

___

Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Exiled by the elite after his conviction for sexually soliciting a teenage girl and failing to rehabilitate his image as a sexual predator, an embittered Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 believed his old friend Donald Trump had escaped scrutiny.

“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote to his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell that April, noting Trump had “spent hours at my house” with Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent women to speak out about being abused by the financier, who died by suicide in April.

The correspondence, obtained from Epstein’s estate by the House Oversight Committee, was included among more than 20,000 documents released this week that brought the men’s relationship history into greater focus. Scores of emails in the cache chart Epstein’s obsession with Trump as he spiraled into scandal and his Palm Beach neighbor ascended to the presidency.

Epstein was at a low point when he sent the missive to Maxwell after serving jail time in Florida for soliciting a 16-year-old. Two months earlier, a Manhattan judge had rejected a bid to downgrade his sex offender status, despite the well-connected wealth manager having then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., in his corner.

Giuffre had publicly spoken out about her allegations that Epstein trafficked her to powerful men for sex, sharing with the Daily Mail a now-infamous photograph of her with his friend Prince Andrew and Maxwell as apparent evidence.

Epstein’s 2011 email to Maxwell marveled that Trump, then hosting “The Apprentice” and floating a run for president had “never once been mentioned.”

“I have been thinking about that…,” Maxwell replied.

Democrats released Epstein’s 2011 message to Maxwell among a set of emails early Wednesday that appeared to suggest the president knew about the financier’s depraved lifestyle and its young victims.

Claiming that their colleagues across the aisle had engaged in a cherry-picking mission, House Republicans later published thousands of Epstein’s digital files online, revealing Giuffre’s identity in the 2011 message, which the Democrats had previously redacted. Many came to the president’s defense, arguing that it proved nothing. Giuffre, they noted, had denied that Trump had abused her or that she’d seen him abuse others in the years before her death.

The president has long denied engaging in any abuse and claimed he stopped talking to Epstein — whom he’d counted as a friend since the 1980s — in the early 2000s over a dispute related to real estate.

On Friday, following a barrage of reporting about the emails, Trump took to his social media site Truth Social to slam what he calls the “EPSTEIN HOAX.” He demanded the Justice Department investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, would head the probe.

Dirt on Trump

The trove of Epstein emails released this week, massive in volume and spanning 2011 to 2019, includes 1,625 references to Trump, although there is no direct communication between the two men.

Made clear throughout is that — whether or not he did — Epstein maintained he had dirt on Trump.

Messaging ahead of a presidential debate in December 2015, Epstein asked his quasi-consultant, Trump biographer Michael Wolff, with whom he spoke regularly, how Trump might best answer a potential question about their relationship.

“I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt,” Wolff responded.

“Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”

Wolff suggested it could be time to pull the trigger less than two weeks before Trump won the presidency in 2016, following the release of “Filthy Rich,” a book about Epstein’s perversions.

“There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested?” Wolff wrote on Oct. 29. It’s not clear from the release whether Epstein responded.

The batch of emails released this week, made searchable online by the Courier Newsroom, is separate from the federal government’s investigative records — the so-called “Epstein files” — whose release the House of Representatives is set to vote on next week.

The trove sheds light on Epstein’s state of mind in the years before his death, and how closely he followed the president’s whereabouts, policy moves, and his own set of scandals. In countless typo-laden emails, the Brooklyn-born financier situated himself as a POTUS expert in conversations with journalists and various confidants, spoke with members of Trump’s inner circle, and sought to shape U.S. policy.

In June 2018, he asked former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland to convey a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin about his willingness to provide insight on Trump.

His correspondence with Wolff is featured throughout the records, and Epstein also frequently spoke about Trump with former New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr., joking about sending him a photo of Trump with girls in bikinis in his kitchen in December 2015.

Epstein communicated regularly with the often foul-mouthed former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, whom he told Trump was “borderline insane,” the emails show.

He also chatted often with Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who in August 2018 told the financier they had to discuss “a crazed jihad against u,” and that “somebody big has u in the gunsights.”

After Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws for then-President Trump in the now-notorious Stormy Daniels hush money scheme in 2018, Epstein alluded to his insider’s perspective in correspondence with Kathy Ruemmler, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Obama aide, with whom the cache shows he frequently chatted.

“You see, i know how dirty donald is,” the financier quipped. “my guess is that non-lawyers ny biz people have no idea. what it means to have your fixer flip.”

“The real villain”

That December, The Miami Herald published the most complete account yet of allegations Epstein had serially exploited vulnerable teenage girls. The piece laid out how Epstein had effectively gotten off with a slap on the wrist in his 2008 plea deal due to former U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who Trump had tapped as his Labor Secretary.

Epstein strategized with Wolff, who believed “directly debunking” the claims wasn’t the right move.

“That’s going against virtue itself,” Wolff wrote. “What I’d like to do is game out everything, creating a structure for thinking this through. Definitely not a piecemeal response. Figure out where we want to be and where we can reasonably get and work backwards.”

Epstein replied, “im thinking what would trump do.”

“Claims are ludicrous and self-serving, media is working with the other side’s lawyers, this is all about Donald Trump,” Wolff responded.

“…all about Donald Trump, the real villain,” Epstein said.

Less than two months later, Epstein explicitly implicated Trump, mentioning Mar-a-Lago to Wolff in a partially redacted email on January 31, 2019, and writing, “trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”

Epstein was apparently still focused on the president the following June, when an email outlining some of Trump’s potentially questionable financial dealings landed in his inbox. Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn sent over “interesting findings” from financial disclosures, or what Kahn called “trumps 100 pages of nonsense.”

Within eight weeks, Epstein was dead. Officials said he’d killed himself in his lower Manhattan jail cell a month after his arrest on sweeping sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell, his longtime partner in crime, was indicted a year later for aiding the abuse for at least a decade in the 1990s and convicted at trial in December 2021. This summer, she was transferred to a cushy prison facility in Bryan, Texas, after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, for a highly unusual sit-down.

Transcripts of the meeting showed that Epstein’s longtime right-hand revealed little new information but notably praised the president, whom she is reportedly now planning to ask for a pardon.

President Trump announced he’s withdrawing his support of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling his former ally a “ranting lunatic” and a “disgrace to our great Republican party” for publicly blasting his handling of various issues, including the Epstein files.

In a wild post shared on his social media platform Friday night, Trump wrote that despite accomplishing what he called “record achievements for our country” and turning the U.S. into the world’s “hottest” nation, all that “Wacky Marjorie” does is “complain, complain, complain.”

He said he would endorse a challenger against Greene “if the right person runs” in next year’s midterm elections, claiming the people of her district are similarly “fed up with her and her antics.”

The political breakup appears to be the culmination of a dispute that had been simmering for at least six months, which the president suggested began when he discouraged Greene from running for Senate or governor.

She also “told many people that she is upset” that Trump doesn’t “return her phone calls anymore,” the president said.

“With 219 congressmen/women, 53 U.S. senators, 24 Cabinet members, almost 200 countries, and an otherwise normal life to lead, I can’t take a ranting lunatic’s call every day,” Trump wrote on Truth Social around 8:30 p.m. Friday.

President Trump just attacked me and lied about me. I haven’t called him at all, but I did send these text messages today. Apparently this is what sent him over the edge.

The Epstein files.

And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other… pic.twitter.com/EcUzaohZZs

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) November 15, 2025

Less than an hour later, the polarizing Georgia lawmaker — and former MAGA powerhouse — fired back at Trump’s claims in a lengthy post on X, sharing a screenshot of a text message she said “sent him over the edge.”

“President Trump just attacked me and lied about me. I haven’t called him at all, but I did send these text messages today,” she wrote, posting a message in which she tells the president about the importance of “releasing the Epstein files.”

Greene was one of a handful of Republicans to sign on with House Democrats to force a vote over releasing the files related to the sex trafficking investigation into the disgraced late financier.

“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out — that he actually goes to this level,” Greene continued.

Despite being a longtime and ardent supporter of the president and the MAGA agenda, Greene said she doesn’t “worship or serve Donald Trump.”

....

Early Saturday morning, Trump doubled down on his attack, slamming “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” as someone who has “betrayed the entire Republican party when she turned left.”

A few hours later, Greene suggested the exchange is making her fear for her life.

“I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world,” she wrote on X. “The man I supported and helped get elected.”

“As a Republican, who overwhelmingly votes for President Trump‘s bills and agenda, his aggression against me, which also fuels the venomous nature of his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid), this is completely shocking to everyone,” wrote Greene, who in 2019 famously stalked and confronted Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg with claims that his gun control activism was being funded by Democrats.

“The political industrial complex and the toxic violent nature of American politics must end,” she said. “Our country is worth saving and it can only be done if we pull together and save ourselves.”

By Ben Strauss and María Luisa PaúlThe Washington Post

CHICAGO – As the Trump administration intensifies a nationwide mass deportation campaign, immigrant parents are scrambling to secure emergency caretakers for their children – flooding legal clinics and naming friends, acquaintances or teachers as temporary guardians.

A Chicago volunteer worker agreed to become a guardian for nine children, using an obscure state law that dates to the AIDS epidemic.

A teacher in Maine recently agreed to be an emergency guardian for one of her students if his parents, both of whom are undocumented, are deported.

And a business owner in Oregon ended up with temporary custody of her friend’s children for four months when the parents were both detained.

Fear of being separated from her son recently led Rosa, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker and single mom in Chicago, to search online for help with a question she never thought she’d face: What happens to my child if I get deported?

The search led her to information about short-term guardianship, or tutela temporal in Spanish, which allows parents to designate a trusted adult to temporarily care for their children under certain conditions without giving up parental rights. In Illinois, the four-page legal document is free and requires no lawyer or notary.

It gives people the authority to make decisions about education and medical needs if parents are unable to care for their children.

“I don’t know if I will come home from work any day; this is my plan,” Rosa said of the short-term guardianship agreement. (Like several others interviewed for this article, she spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation from the federal government.)

Across the country, the effects of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign have had a chilling effect on immigrant communities – both the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and those here legally.

Perhaps nowhere has it been more pronounced than in Chicago, where law firms advertise services on Spanish language radio for parents in need of a plan for their kids if they get detained.

Sometimes parents are seeking help from U.S. citizens they’ve only recently met. Aleah Arundale, who helps a network of immigrants with necessities like food and rent money in Chicago, has made short-term guardianship arrangements for nine children from four families. “The greatest fear for them is: ‘What happens if I get taken?’” Arundale said. “They think I’m the best chance to get their kids back.”

There’s no data to quantify short-term guardianship arrangements since the requirements vary by state. But lawyers report they are being inundated. Clinics are popping up across the country, and one specialist said they usually see two or three cases per year but now receive hundreds of requests each week for information.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the surge of interest in guardianship agreements. The Trump administration has deported more than 400,000 people this year, DHS has said. It has also doubled the number of people detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. As of late September, ICE is holding nearly 60,000 people in custody. It’s unclear how many of those are parents.

The White House has said it is targeting criminals, but some of those who have been detained are asylum seekers, longtime residents, people with pending immigration cases or even U.S. citizens. A Syracuse University research group has found that more than 70 percent of those detained by ICE do not have criminal records.

At a time of heightened anxiety, some immigrants said guardianship planning has become one of the few things they can control. “It helps me breathe,” said one mother, an asylum seeker from Venezuela, who completed the Illinois form with Arundale. “And it took 10 minutes.”

– – –

Hundreds every week

Rosa arrived in Chicago four years ago. She cleans an office with a work permit, but a highly publicized federal immigration raid in her neighborhood sent her into a panic.

After Rosa learned about temporary guardianship, her church connected her with Rebekah Rashidfarokhi, an attorney and director of guardianship and immigration programs for children at Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, which offers pro bono representation.

The two met virtually this month to discuss the process.

Unlike adoption or more complicated guardianship procedures that require court approval, short-term guardianship in Illinois needs just the signatures of two consenting parties and two witnesses. Parents can revoke the arrangement at any time. It can last up to a year.

The form is helpful for enrolling a child in school or going to the doctor, Rashidfarokhi said, because it is recognized by state law. It has no federal authority, so it cannot be used to get a passport. (Several parents said that if they are deported they hoped it could also help make international travel and reuniting with their children easier.)

The guardianship does not kick in immediately but takes effect with a specified event. Rashidfarokhi instructed Rosa to be specific about the conditions: “In case I am detained by immigration.”

Rosa said she left Ecuador after her husband was abusing her and threatening her children. She has lived in fear in recent weeks, she said, but also knowing she must make logistical plans. She has been preparing documents, including proof of custody of her son after her divorce. She spoke to a woman, a dual American and Ecuadorian citizen, she met taking English classes at a community college to be her designated guardian. The woman agreed.

She has avoided talking too much about any of it with her 13-year-old son.

“He is confused about what is happening,” Rosa said. “But I am his mother, and I have to do it.”

Rashidfarokhi has been a family law attorney for two decades. Most years, she handles two or three short-term guardianship cases. Now, hundreds of people are requesting information every week, with families and community groups flooding her with requests for clinics and presentations. At one clinic earlier this year, 100 families showed up. (Rashidfarokhi said it’s difficult to quantify how many people fill out the form because many of the consultations she does now are virtual since so many people are afraid to leave their homes.)

Mayra Lira, an attorney with Public Counsel in Los Angeles, said she has seen similar demand for guardianship clinics in her city, where the Trump administration has also carried out immigration raids.

Lira described seeing parents make short-term guardianship plans as “dystopian,” adding that allegations of unlawful arrests and racial profiling have also brought green-card holders and U.S. citizens to the clinics.

“Everyone is afraid of being targeted,” she said.

– – –

‘We want people to know what to do’

The legal framework for Illinois’ short-term guardianship didn’t exist until the late 1980s. It was conceived of primarily to assist HIV-positive parents, many of them low-income, who were worried the state would assume custody of their kids if they died. It took several years of lobbying before Illinois amended its probate law.

“It was revolutionary at the time,” said Linda Coon, a lawyer who spearheaded the effort. “I knew it would help our clients but could never imagine it would be used by thousands of people today.”

Its uses have expanded over the years. During the early days of the pandemic, an executive order in New York state allowed medical workers to designate a temporary guardian. Several states – including Maryland and New York, as well as the District of Columbia – amended statutes during the first Trump administration to recognize immigration detention or deportation as an event that could give designated caregivers temporary parental rights. California passed a law last month that created a new short-term guardianship process for parents who could be detained or deported.

Today, guardianship conversations are happening in all types of settings, some not even planned by parents.

A teacher in Maine said she agreed to be a temporary guardian for one of her students after the parents broke down crying in a meeting over what might happen to their child if they were deported.

“I will do that every single time,” the teacher said. “I shouldn’t have to. I should just be able to teach my kids.”

Mimi Lettunich, an Oregon resident, took care of a friend’s four children after the family was detained by federal agents. (She has a pending U.S. visa and her children are U.S. citizens.) When Lettunich picked up the children, she was handed a coloring book with a note from their mother that said: “I will miss my babies. … I talked to them that they need to obey you.” The note also included a reminder for one of her kids’ upcoming orthodontist appointments.

Temporary guardianship allowed Lettunich to take the kids to doctor’s appointments and enroll them in a new school.

Lettunich’s friend was eventually released, and the two are now working on a handbook to help families facing the same circumstances. One of its strongest recommendations: arrange for short-term guardianship.

“We want people to know what to do,” Lettunich said. “Because you never think it’ll happen – until it does.”

By Rachel SiegelThe Washington Post

President Donald Trump over the weekend floated an idea that took real estate agents, mortgage brokers and housing experts by surprise: the 50-year mortgage.

On Saturday, Trump posted an image on Truth Social titled “Great American Presidents.” It included a photo of President Franklin D. Roosevelt under the words “30-year mortgage” and a photo of Trump beneath the words “50-year mortgage.” (Mortgages were extended to 30 years in the 1940s as part of Roosevelt’s push to make home buying more affordable.)

Housing economists say the longer time frame could save buyers a couple hundred dollars a month, depending on the size of the mortgage and other details. But it would be costlier in other ways, including with more interest paid over a longer period of time. Implementing such a policy would also require tedious changes from regulators, plus buy-in from lenders and the broader housing finance industry.

So far, there’s little sense of how popular a 50-year mortgage would be. Here’s what we know so far.

– – –

What has the Trump administration said?

After Trump’s Truth Social post on Saturday, Bill Pulte, the administration’s top housing finance official, posted on X that “we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage – a complete game changer.” Pulte is the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who also made himself chair of mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies that have been under government control since the 2008 housing crisis. Fannie and Freddie are essential to the smooth functioning of the U.S. mortgage market and together guarantee about half of existing home loans.

In a statement, a White House official who declined to be named said Trump “is always exploring new ways to improve housing affordability for everyday Americans. Any official policy changes will be announced by the White House.”

An FHFA spokesperson who also declined to be named said, “We are studying, and have not finalized, a wide variety of options related to multi year loans, including the ability to make mortgages transferable or portable. If banks can sell someone’s mortgage, we should at least explore if there are opportunities for regular Americans to have flexibility.”

One person close to the White House said the announcement came after Democrats swept in last week’s elections, in part on pledges to boost affordability for housing and more. But that person, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said Trump’s social media post had no substantial policy behind it yet.

– – –

Would 50-year mortgages save buyers money?

With a longer timeline, home buyers have much more time to pay back a loan. And they would have lower monthly payments along the way. For example, let’s assume a home sells for $400,000. A buyer puts up 10 percent – or $40,000 – for a down payment. The buyer gets a 6.25 percent interest rate, slightly above last week’s 30-year fixed rate average of 6.22 percent.

That buyer would owe about $2,300 each month on a 30-year mortgage. On a 50-year loan, they would owe about $2,000. They might pay more than that, though – that math assumes a buyer gets the same rate for both mortgages, which is unlikely, since shorter loans typically have lower rates. So rates on 50-year loans could be higher than on 30-year ones.

A lower monthly payment could be beneficial for new buyers looking to get a foothold in the market. But it might also work against them if they are only planning on living in the house for a few years, or if they don’t know how their needs will shake out across decades.

– – –

What about potential drawbacks?

Buyers’ monthly payments may be lower, but they’ll end up paying much more interest over two more decades. With a 50-year loan, total interest on that $400,000 home would amount to $816,396, compared with $438,156 on a 30-year loan. That’s 86 percent more interest over the life of the loans, said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com.

And it will take much longer for owners to build equity. Ten years into paying off a 30-year mortgage on that $400,000 home, an owner would have a 24 percent stake in a house, setting aside rising home values. With a 50-year mortgage, that would be 14 percent.

Berner said addressing the nation’s affordability problems will take lots of ideas, including how to generate more construction so there are enough homes to meet Americans’ needs. But a new mortgage offering could juice demand before supply can catch up – which would push prices even higher.

“This is a creative way to solve this problem,” Berner said, “but I don’t think it addresses the fundamental issues that we have.”

– – –

What would it take to offer a 50-year mortgage?

Establishing a new kind of mortgage could be possible, albeit complex, wrote Jaret Seiberg, managing director at TD Cowen, in a Monday analyst note. The Dodd-Frank Act – the landmark legislation that reformed the financial system after the 2008 financial crisis – says mortgages that exceed 30 years do not meet the definition of a qualified mortgage, which also means Fannie and Freddie can’t buy them.

But regulators have the ability to alter those qualifications to keep mortgages affordable. All told, the process could take at least a year to implement, Seiberg wrote, and it’s unlikely that lenders would originate 50-year mortgages without clear policy changes first.

Without changing the qualifications, the new loans could be hard to find – and more expensive. Lenders may be less willing to offer 50-year mortgages if they know Fannie and Freddie can’t buy them, a spokesperson for the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a statement. Limited interest from investors could also push interest rates up.

– – –

What’s next?

Any details from the White House or FHFA would be needed for the market to prepare for such a change. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said that for now, the administration’s posts appear to be more about messaging than substantial policy. But, Brusuelas said, younger generations “may look at this differently.”

“If they think they’re saving $300 or $400 a month, then that’s a big deal,” he said. “That covers the car payment, maybe.”

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2025. There are 49 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island officially closed as an immigration station and detention center. More than 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.

Also on this date:

In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in Washington, D.C., and gave the green light to traffic.

In 1936, American playwright Eugene O’Neill received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1948, Japanese general and former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal; he was executed in December 1948.

In 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The deadliest tropical cyclone on record claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000-500,000 people.

In 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.

In 2019, Venice saw its worst flooding in more than 50 years, with the water reaching 6.14 feet (1.87 meters) above average sea level; damage was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2021, a judge in Los Angeles ended the conservatorship that had controlled the life and money of pop star Britney Spears for nearly 14 years.

In 2024, a federal judge sentenced Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, to 15 years in prison for leaking classified military documents about the war in Ukraine; Teixeira had pleaded guilty to willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, nearly a year after his arrest in the most consequential national security breach in years.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor-playwright Wallace Shawn is 82.
• Rock musician Booker T. Jones is 81.
• Sportscaster Al Michaels is 81.
• Singer-songwriter Neil Young is 80.
• Author Tracy Kidder is 80.
• Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island is 76.
• Actor Megan Mullally is 67.
• Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comăneci is 64.
• Olympic gold medal swimmer Jason Lezak is 50.
• Pakistani filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is 47.
• Actor Ryan Gosling is 45.
• Actor Anne Hathaway is 43.
• Golfer Jason Day is 38.
• NBA point guard Russell Westbrook is 37.

Today is Saturday, Nov. 8, the 312th day of 2025. There are 53 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 8, 2000, a statewide recount began in Florida, which emerged as critical in deciding the winner of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democratic Vice President Al Gore. The recount would officially end on Dec. 12 upon orders from the U.S. Supreme Court, delivering Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency to Bush.

Also on this date:

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln won reelection as he defeated Democratic challenger George B. McClellan.

In 1889, Montana was admitted to the Union as the 41st state.

In 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power in Germany with a failed coup in Munich that came to be known as the “Beer-Hall Putsch.”

In 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch in World War II as U.S. and British forces landed in French North Africa.

In 1950, during the Korean War, the first air-to-air combat between jet warplanes took place as U.S. Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown shot down a North Korean MiG-15.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the U.S. presidential election over Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

In 1974, a federal judge in Cleveland, citing insufficient evidence, dismissed charges against eight Ohio National Guardsmen accused of violating the civil rights of students killed or wounded in the 1970 Kent State shootings.

In 2012, Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Arizona, that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, slammed into the central Philippines, leaving more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattening villages and displacing more than 5 million.

In 2016, Republican Donald Trump was elected America’s 45th president, defeating Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in an astonishing victory for a celebrity businessman and political novice.

In 2018, tens of thousands of people fled a fast-moving wildfire in Northern California that would become the state’s deadliest ever, killing 86 people and nearly destroying the community of Paradise.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Racing Hall of Fame jockey Angel Cordero Jr. is 83.
• Singer Bonnie Raitt is 76.
• TV personality Mary Hart is 75.
• Actor Alfre Woodard is 73.
• inger-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones is 71.
• Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro is 71.
• Filmmaker Richard Curtis is 69.
• Chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay is 59.
• Actor Courtney Thorne-Smith is 58.
• Actor Parker Posey is 57.
• Actor Gretchen Mol is 53.
• News anchor David Muir is 52.
• Actor Matthew Rhys is 51.
• Actor Tara Reid is 50.
• TV personality Jack Osbourne is 40.
• Actor Jessica Lowndes is 37.
• Baseball player Giancarlo Stanton is 36.
• R&B singer SZA is 36.

A federal judge Wednesday ordered the release of video taken during an hourslong deposition given last week by U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino.

The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Public Media petitioned U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis to release the recordings, which were filed under seal as part of a lawsuit led by the Chicago Headline Club, a nonprofit journalism advocacy organization, and a consortium of other media groups. The journalism organizations allege federal immigration enforcement officials have systematically violated the constitutional rights of protesters and reporters during President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission, which began in early September and shows no sign of slowing down.

Ellis, who issued a temporary restraining order last month, announced Thursday that she will put longer-term restrictions on federal agents’ use of chemical agents on crowds and provide enhanced protections for protesters and members of the media.

The released videos can be seen in their entirety on the Tribune’s YouTube channel, but here are some of the highlights:

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Chicago

Bovino, who is leading Trump’s immigration enforcement effort in the Chicago area, testified that he is leading roughly 220 U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents as part of the so-called Operation Midway Blitz. He said he reports directly to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

‘More than exemplary’

Asked by veteran Chicago civil rights attorney Locke Bowman if he stood by remarks he made to CBS that the use of force at the Broadview ICE facility has been “exemplary,” Bovino at first surprised everyone by saying, “No.”

“The uses of force have been more than exemplary,” Bovino clarified.

In placing longer-term restrictions Thursday, Ellis disagreed.

“The use of force shocks the conscience,” she said.

‘Violent rioters’

During the deposition, Bovino said he had not witnessed his agents using tear gas or pepper-spray balls against protesters in Broadview, but chemical agents were used against “violent rioters” and “assaultive subjects.”

Definition of a protester

When asked to define “protester,”  Bovino said it’s a person “exercising their constitutional rights to speak — to speak their opinion, to speak their mind in a peaceful fashion … in accordance with laws, rules and with the Constitution.”

“We get protesters on both sides of the issue. Sometimes they protest against, say, a Title 8 immigration enforcement mission, tell us they don’t like it, we shouldn’t be there, we need to go home, use very foul language oftentimes,” he said. “And then there’s also protesters on the other side of the issue that say ‘hey, you should be there. We’re glad you’re here. Continue to be here.’ So, I look at those as peaceful individuals exercising their right to, one, be there and, two, speak their mind. It’s freedom of assembly, freedom of speech.”

Bovino then rattled off a list of public actions he said his agents have experienced, actions he uses to draw a distinction between protesters and “violent rioters” or “assaultive subjects”: “Removing masks, kicking agents, grabbing agents’ groins, assisting and abetting prisoners from escaping, shooting fireworks, knifing and slashing tires with weapons, throwing rocks through windows of vehicles to hurt agents and/or detainees.”

‘Not a reportable use of force’

On the video, Bovino is asked about an Oct. 3 arrest he made involving a man protesting outside the Broadview facility. According to the complaint, Bovino ordered a man to move down the street after the man told him, “you love to be on television.” As the man started to move, the complaint states, Bovino “stepped across a barrier,” tackled the man and arrested him.

During the Nov. 4 deposition, Bovino said the arrest “was not a reportable use of force. I placed him under arrest. I didn’t tackle him.”

More about Bovino’s interaction with the protester

Bovino was asked about an encounter with the man, Scott Blackburn, who was protesting at Broadview. The lawyer and Bovino disagreed over whether he used force when he tackled the protester.

“He doesn’t like the fact that you are instructing him to move down,” the lawyer said to Bovino.

Bovino objected to the lawyer’s characterization, saying instead, “That individual is failing to follow instructions to vacate the area.”

The video shows Bovino tackling the protester. But Bovino characterized it a different way.

“I’m imploring Mr. Blackburn, or whoever that individual was, to comply with leaving the area and to comply with instructions,” Bovino said.

Asked if he was “making physical contact,” Bovino said he was. But he denied that it was a use of force, saying it was different than using deadly force or “open-hand strikes.”

But he disputed that he used force against the protester.

“The use of force was against me,” Bovino said.

The judge, however, said she did not believe Bovino’s testimony about force that his agents and he personally inflicted in incidents across the Chicago area.

“In one of the videos, Bovino obviously attacks and tackles the declarant, Mr. Blackburn, to the ground,” Ellis said. “But Mr. Bovino, despite watching this video (in his deposition) says that he never used force.”

Pastor struck in the head

In video taken at a protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, the Rev. David Black walks toward the building and appears to talk with someone on the roof. A fellow demonstrator offers Black a bullhorn, which the Presbyterian pastor appears to ignore.

Seconds later, Black begins dodging pepper-spray projectiles fired at him, as another protester lifts his shirt and dances a jig as if daring someone to shoot at him. Black initially takes a few steps back, then moves forward with his arms outstretched, looking up toward the building and talking.

On the video, pepper-spray balls can be seen striking the ground in front of Black. He is then struck in the right arm by one. He appears to try and turn away before he is struck again, this time in the head.

Other protesters quickly gather around him as he kneels or falls to the ground, the recording shows. Bystanders lift him and help spirit him away.

Struck again

On the video, Black returns to sidewalk in front of the detention center with a megaphone in hand. As he appears to speak to someone on the roof, pepper-spray balls are fired in his direction.

A protester appears to try to shield him with a sign, but it doesn’t work. Black is hit in the head again.

Bovino on the incident with Pastor Black

Bovino was asked about Rev. David Black, a Presbyterian pastor who was shot in the head by a federal agent. He declined to answer the question, which was framed as a hypothetical, saying he was “unable to comment on that use of force.”

Pressed further, Bovino said: “I don’t know what the use of force was here. I can’t make a judgment either way because I don’t know.”

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is speeding up the implementation of new rules that would give the agency tasked with protecting federal government facilities greater authority to charge people for a broader array of offenses on or off those properties.

The changes outlining the powers of the Federal Protective Service, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, were put forward in early January under the Biden administration and were slated to take effect on Jan. 1 of next year but instead went into effect Wednesday. The administration said the rules were being changed ahead of time so they could address a “recent surge in violence.”

They come as protests have surged against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, especially near buildings associated with immigration enforcement, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices or facilities. They also come as the Trump administration is facing lawsuits in both Chicago and Portland against what critics say is the excessive use of force by federal officers against protesters and others or unjustified attempts to bring in federal forces to protect facilities.

Activists and many political leaders have accused Homeland Security of aggressively suppressing peaceful protests and targeting activists trying to hold them accountable. Critics said the new rules could be used to target protesters.

“DHS is using every tool possible to protect the lives of our law enforcement as they face a surge in violence and lawlessness at many of our federal facilities,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a news release announcing the sped-up schedule. The release cited a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility, an incident that killed two detainees.

The new rules empower officers from the Federal Protective Service to make arrests and charge people for actions near the federal property, and they include new rules regulating unauthorized use of drones and tampering with digital networks.

The Homeland Security news release gave some examples of conduct that the Federal Protective Service could now charge someone for, both on federal property and off, including wearing a mask while committing a crime, obstructing access to federal property and tampering with government IT systems like card readers.

Spencer Reynolds, a former intelligence and counterintelligence lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security who’s now with the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank, said Congress gave the Federal Protective Service the ability to work and carry out arrests off of federal property as necessary. But he’s concerned that the new regulations codifying these powers will be used as a way to target protesters.

“I see this as being guidance to go after peaceful protests where they are happening in the vicinity or even not in the vicinity of federal property,” he said.

In a report last year issued by the Brennan Center, Reynolds said the FPS expanded dramatically after Sept. 11 and that’s led to “overreach under political pressure.”

In Chicago, a federal judge overseeing a case alleging federal agents carrying out an immigration crackdown there are using excessive force against journalists and protesters said Thursday that she’s going to restrict federal agents’ use of force to prevent the “chilling of First Amendment rights.” U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis said she didn’t feel federal agents’ use of force was justified and that she didn’t find their “version of events credible.”

In Portland, the Trump administration has argued that protests at the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building have gotten so out of control that it justifies sending in National Guard troops to protect federal personnel and property where protests are occurring or likely to occur.

U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut Sunday barred the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, until at least Friday, saying she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city grew out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.

The Federal Protective Service is tasked with protecting federal properties. The agency used to fall under the U.S. General Services Administration, which is responsible for purchasing and managing federal real estate, but when the Department of Homeland Security was created in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the FPS was transferred to Homeland Security.

RICHMOND, Va. — Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to give Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and make history as the first woman ever to lead the commonwealth.

Spanberger’s victory will flip partisan control of the governor’s office when she succeeds outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“We sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth, a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country,” Spanberger told cheering supporters Tuesday night in Richmond. “We sent a message to the whole word that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”

Also Tuesday, Democrat Ghazala F. Hashmi won the race for lieutenant governor and will succeed Earle-Sears, and Democrat Jay Jones defeated Republican incumbent Jason Miyares in the race for attorney general. Jones is set to become the first Black attorney general in Virginia, while Hashmi is the first Muslim woman to win a statewide office in the U.S.

Spanberger, a former congresswoman and CIA case officer, won by emphasizing economic issues, a strategy that may serve as a model for other Democrats in next year’s elections as they try to break President Donald Trump’s and Republicans’ hold on power in Washington and gain ground in statehouses.

Campaigning, Spanberger often sidestepped the historic potential of her candidacy. In victory, she embraced it.

“Just a few minutes ago, Adam said to our daughters, your mom’s going to be the governor of Virginia. And I can guarantee those words have never been spoken in Virginia ever before,” she said

“It’s a big deal that the girls and the young women I have met along the campaign trail now know with certainty that they can achieve anything.”

Spanberger’s eyes welled up as she told her family she loved them, as her husband and three daughters, standing behind her, wiped tears from their cheeks.

Spanberger was intentional in how she criticized Trump

Throughout the campaign, Spanberger made carefully crafted economic arguments against Trump’s policies, while she spent considerable sums on ads tying Earle-Sears to the president. She campaigned across the state, including in Republican-leaning areas, and in her first appearance as governor-elect she wore a bright red suit.

Yet Spanberger also emphasized her support for abortion rights in the last Southern state that has not enacted new restrictions or bans on the procedure, and she railed against Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, the U.S. government shutdown and their negative impact on a state with several hundred thousand federal employees.

That approach helped corral Democrats’ core supporters while attracting the kinds of swing voters who elected Youngkin four years ago. It also continued a historical trend for Virginia: Since Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, Virginia has backed a governor from the opposite party of every first-term president in the following year. This year is a special case, given the gap between Trump’s terms.

Republicans, meanwhile, must grapple again with a battleground loss by an arch-conservative from the president’s party.

Trump never campaigned for Earle-Sears, though he did give her his tepid support. Their uneasy alliance raises questions about the ideal Republican nominee for contested general elections and how the president’s volatile standing with voters might affect GOP candidates next November. The midterm elections will settle statehouse control in dozens of states and determine whether Republicans maintain majorities in Washington for the final years of Trump’s presidency.

Earle-Sears 61, would have become the first Black woman to be elected as a governor in the U.S.

In her concession speech, she said she hoped Spanberger would support policies that unite Virginians.

“My opponent, Abigail, ran as a moderate. If she governs as one, then she will unite us, and she’ll heal our divide and win our support,” Earle-Sears said. “I hope and pray she does.”

Spanberger balanced policy and biography

Spanberger, 46, ran on a pledge to protect Virginia’s economy from the aggressive tactics of Trump’s second administration, which has culled the civil service, levied tariffs and shepherded a reconciliation bill curtailing the state’s already fragile health care system.

Accountant Sherry Kohan, 56, who cast her ballot at the Aurora Hills Library in Arlington, said she used to think of herself as a Republican but hasn’t felt aligned with either party since Trump’s first term. She said her vote for Spanberger was a vote against Trump.

Stephanie Uhl, 38, who also said she voted for Spanberger, had the federal government shutdown on her mind when casting her ballot at the library in Arlington, just across the river from Washington.

Uhl was working without pay for the Defense Department and though she said, “I can afford (it) just fine,” she was bothered “that it affects so many other people.”

Spanberger’s background also figured heavily into her victory. As a former CIA case officer, she noted her public service and national security credentials. And she pitched herself as the mother of daughters educated in Virginia’s public schools and a Capitol Hill veteran who represented a swing district and worked across the aisle.

The pitch helped the Democratic nominee withstand Earle-Sears’ attacks on cultural issues, notably the Republican’s assertion that Spanberger is an extremist on civil rights and health care for transgender people. Spanberger, who consistently argued that local school districts should decide whether transgender students can participate in competitive sports, cast her opponent as the candidate more out of step with the middle of the Virginia electorate.

Her strategy echoed the approach Democrats used to flip U.S. House control in the 2018 midterms, halfway through Trump’s first presidency. Spanberger was among several high-profile women who brought national security or military credentials to campaigns in battleground districts. Another of those women, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, was vying Tuesday to become New Jersey’s Democratic governor.

Together, they were held up as examples of successful mainstream Democrats at a time when the party’s left flank has been ascendent, most notably Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and the party’s nominee in Tuesday’s New York mayoral contest.

In Congress, Spanberger was a quiet workhorse

When she first got to Washington, Spanberger concentrated on lower-profile issues: bringing broadband to rural areas, fighting drug trafficking and veterans’ services. And she quickly established a reputation for working with colleagues across the political spectrum.

In her new role, she will face tightening economic projections, rising utility costs and growing unemployment — in part because of the Trump administration’s federal contraction. But she could have the advantage of a friendly Legislature if Democrats are able to maintain their majority in the House of Delegates. All 100 seats in that chamber were on the ballot Tuesday, as were other statewide offices, including lieutenant governor and attorney general. The state Senate, also controlled by Democrats, was not on the ballot this year. If Democrats have the so-called trifecta in Richmond, as Republicans do now in Washington, they could enact many policy priorities that lawmakers advanced to Youngkin only for him to veto the bills.

Spanberger won despite a late surprise that threatened Virginia’s Democratic ticket. In October, news reports revealed that Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, sent texts in 2022 suggesting the former Republican House speaker get “two bullets to the head.”

Republicans across the U.S., including Trump and Earle-Sears, demanded Jones drop out. He apologized and said he was ashamed of the messages but declined to leave the race.

The controversy dogged Spanberger. She condemned the text messages but stopped short of asking Jones to withdraw from the race, and she notably did not withdraw her endorsement.

“I have denounced political violence, political rhetoric,” Spanberger said in her lone debate with Earle-Sears, “no matter who is leading the charge.”

Olivia Diaz 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. Barrow reported from Atlanta. Helen Wieffering contributed from Arlington, Virginia.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is heading to Miami on Wednesday — the anniversary of his reelection to a second term — to speak to a forum of business leaders and global athletes about what he sees as his economic achievements.

His speech to the American Business Forum will be a broad look at his economic agenda and how investments he has secured abroad help U.S. communities, according to a senior White House official. It’s a significant effort from Trump to put a positive spin on the economy at a time when Americans remain uneasy about the state of their finances and the cost of living — and when major campaigns in Tuesday’s election were centered on affordability and the economy.

The AP Voter Poll survey, which included more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City, suggested the public was troubled by higher prices and fewer job opportunities despite Trump’s promises to tame inflation and unleash growth.

In his speech, Trump will touch on deregulation, energy independence and oil prices, and affordability, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to preview the president’s address.

Trump spent five days in Asia last week with stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. He worked to ease trade tensions with Beijing in a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In Tokyo, he promoted several major energy and tech projects for the U.S. that will be funded by Japan.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said he thinks Trump’s recent travels “have been transformational in his presidency” and said his speech will be a highlight of the forum, which organizers have described as a more accessible version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or the Milken Institute Global Conference, which gathers the world’s elite for discussions on the economy.

“This conference not only is creating this incredible collection of people, but it’s also creating them in a particular moment in time,” said Suarez, a Republican.

Trump’s visit also highlights how the Miami area is playing a key role during his second term.

Trump is set to host leaders of the world’s leading rich and developing economies at next year’s Group of 20 summit at his golf club at the nearby city of Doral, despite what critics say is the appearance of impropriety.

Trump’s sons have taken over running the Trump Organization while their father is in the White House, and the president has insisted that his family’s business will not make any money by holding the summit at the golf club.

The city is where Trump wants to locate his future presidential library, which is now facing a legal challenge over whether the plot of land in downtown Miami is being properly transferred. Miami is also one of the U.S. host cities for next year’s World Cup, which Trump has eagerly promoted as the kickoff to several major global sporting events for which the U.S. is playing host. Ensuring the success of the World Cup has been a top priority for the Trump administration.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino, with whom Trump has developed a close friendship, is scheduled to speak at the Miami forum later Wednesday.

TRENTON, N.J. — U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday was elected governor of New Jersey, shoring up Democratic control of a state that has been reliably blue in presidential and Senate contests but had shown signs of shifting rightward in recent years.

Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and four-term member of Congress, defeated Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, and quickly cast her victory late Tuesday as a referendum on the Republican president and some of his policies from health care to immigration and the economy.

“We here in New Jersey are bound to fight for a different future for our children,” Sherrill told her supporters gathered to celebrate her victory. “We see how clearly important liberty is. We know that no one in our great state is safe when our neighbors are targeted, ignoring the law and the Constitution.”

Ciattarelli called Sherrill to congratulate her on the results and said he “gave her my very best wishes in hopefully solving New Jersey.”

The start of voting on Tuesday was disrupted after officials in seven counties received e-mailed bomb threats later determined by law enforcement to be unfounded, said the state’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way. A judge granted a one-hour extension at some polling places after Democrats made a request for three schools that received e-mailed bomb threats earlier Tuesday.

Sherrill, 53, offers some reassurance for moderates within the Democratic Party as they navigate the path forward for next year’s midterms. A former prosecutor and military veteran, Sherrill embodies a brand of centrist Democrats who aim to appeal to some conservatives while still aligning with some progressive causes. She campaigned on standing up to Trump and casting blame for voters’ concerns over the economy on his tariffs.

Earlier at Sherrill’s victory party, other Democrats were also framing the results Tuesday as a rebuke to the Trump agenda 10 months into his administration.

“Today we said no to Donald Trump and yes to democracy,” said New Jersey’s Democratic Party chair LeRoy J. Jones Jr. to the people gathered.

She will be New Jersey’s second female governor, after Republican Christine Todd Whitman, who served between 1994 and 2001. Her victory also gives Democrats three straight gubernatorial election wins in New Jersey, the first time in six decades that either major party has achieved a three-peat.

Ciattarelli lost his second straight governor’s election after coming within a few points of defeating incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago.

New Jersey’s odd-year race for governor, one of just two this year along with Virginia, often hinged on local issues such as property taxes. But the campaign also served as a potential gauge of national sentiment, especially how voters are reacting to the president’s second term and Democrats’ messaging ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Sherrill lambasted the president’s threat to cancel a project to build new rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River to replace the aging, disintegrating tubes now used by trains headed to and from New York City. She also pledged to order a freeze on electric utility rates, which have recently soared.

Sherrill steps into the governorship role after serving four terms in the U.S. House. She won that post in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office, flipping a longtime GOP-held district in an election that saw Democrats sweep all but one of the state’s 12 House seats.

During her campaign, Sherrill leaned hard into her credentials as a congresswoman and onetime prosecutor as well as her military service. But she also had to defend her Navy service record after a news report that she was not allowed to participate in her 1994 graduation ceremony from the U.S. Naval Academy commencement in connection with an academic cheating scandal at the school.

Sherrill said the punishment was a result of not turning in some classmates, not because she herself had cheated. But she declined to release additional records that the Ciattarelli campaign said would shed more light on the issue.

For her part, she accused Ciattarelli of profiting off the opioid crisis. He is the former owner of a medical publishing company that made continuing education materials for doctors, including some that discussed pain management and opioids. Sherrill called it “propaganda” for drug companies, something Ciattarelli denied.

Sherrill will inherit a state budget that swelled under Murphy, who delivered on promises to fund the public worker pension fund and a K-12 school aid formula after years of neglect under previous governors, by high income taxes on the wealthy. But there are also headwinds that include unfunded promises to continue a property tax relief program begun in the governor’s second term.

Also on the ballot Tuesday were all 80 seats in the Assembly, which Democrats control with a 52-seat majority.

New Jersey hasn’t supported a Republican for U.S. Senate or the White House in decades. The governor’s office, though, has often switched back and forth between the parties. The last time the same party prevailed in a third straight New Jersey election for governor was in 1961, when Richard Hughes won the race to succeed Gov. Robert Meyner. Both were Democrats.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s power to unilaterally impose far-reaching tariffs is coming before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a pivotal test of executive power with trillion-dollar implications for the global economy.

The Republican administration is trying to defend the tariffs central to Trump’s economic agenda after lower courts ruled the emergency law he invoked doesn’t give him near-limitless power to set and change duties on imports.

The Constitution says Congress has the power to levy tariffs. But the Trump administration argues that in emergency situations the president can regulate importation taxes like tariffs. Trump has called the case one of the most important in the country’s history and said a ruling against him would be “catastrophic” for the economy.

The challengers argue the 1977 emergency-powers law Trump used doesn’t even mention tariffs, and no president before has used it to impose them. A collection of small businesses say the uncertainty is driving them to the brink of bankruptcy.

The case centers on two sets of tariffs. The first came in February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico after Trump declared a national emergency over drug trafficking. The second involves the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on most countries that Trump announced in April.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the tariffs, and the court will hear suits filed by Democratic-leaning states and small businesses focused on everything from plumbing supplies to women’s cycling apparel.

Lower courts have struck down the bulk of his tariffs as an illegal use of emergency power, but the nation’s highest court may see it differently.

Trump helped shape the conservative-majority court, naming three of the justices in his first term. The justices have so far been reluctant to check his extraordinary flex of executive power, handing him a series of wins on its emergency docket.

Still, those have been short-term orders — little of Trump’s wide-ranging conservative agenda has been fully argued before the nation’s highest court. That means the outcome could set the tone for wider legal pushback against his policies.

The justices have been skeptical of executive power claims before, such as when then-President Joe Biden tried to forgive $400 billion in student loans under a different law dealing with national emergencies. The Supreme Court found the law didn’t clearly give him the power to enact a program with such a big economic impact, a legal principle known as the major questions doctrine.

The challengers say Trump’s tariffs should get the same treatment, since they’ll have a much greater economic effect, raising some $3 trillion over the next decade. The government, on the other hand, says the tariffs are different because they’re a major part of his approach to foreign affairs, an area where the courts should not be second-guessing the president.

The challengers are also trying to channel the conservative justices’ skepticism about whether the Constitution allows other parts of the government to use powers reserved for Congress, a concept known as the nondelegation doctrine. Trump’s interpretation of the law could mean anyone who can “regulate” can also impose taxes, they say.

The Justice Department counters that legal principle is for governmental agencies, not for the president.

If he eventually loses at the high court, Trump could impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act. The aftermath of a ruling against him also could be complicated, if the government must issue refunds for the tariffs that had collected $195 billion in revenue as of September.

The Trump administration did win over four appeals court judges who found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, gives the president authority to regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. In recent decades, Congress has ceded some tariff authority to the president, and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 5, the 309th day of 2025. There are 56 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 5, 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony defied the law by casting a vote in the presidential election; she was later arrested and charged with “knowingly voting without having a lawful right to vote.” Found guilty at trial, she was fined $100, which she refused to pay.

Also on this date:

In 1605, the “Gunpowder Plot” failed as Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament; Fawkes and his co-conspirators were later convicted of treason and hanged.

In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and Socialist Eugene V. Debs.

In 1930, novelist Sinclair Lewis became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1940, Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term as president, defeating Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.

In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Democratic Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.

In 1994, George Foreman became the oldest heavyweight boxing champion at age 45, knocking out Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their title bout.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton won a second term in the White House, defeating Republican Bob Dole.

In 2006, Saddam Hussein was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to death by hanging.

In 2009, a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas left 13 people dead and wounded more than 30; Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He remains in prison on death row.

In 2017, a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire in the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen people; the shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In 2021, Fans at a Houston music festival surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, triggering panic that left 10 people dead and many more injured.

In 2024, Republican former President Donald Trump was elected to a second term, defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris; he was the second president, after Grover Cleveland in 1892, to be elected to a nonconsecutive term.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer Art Garfunkel is 84.
• Singer Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) is 78.
• TV personality Kris Jenner is 70.
• Singer Bryan Adams is 66.
• Actor Tilda Swinton is 65.
• Actor Tatum O’Neal is 62.
• Actor Judy Reyes is 58.
• Actor Seth Gilliam is 57.
• Actor Sam Rockwell is 57.
• Musician Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) is 54.
• Golfer Bubba Watson is 47.
• Olympic gold medal marathoner Eliud Kipchoge is 41.
• Musician Kevin Jonas (The Jonas Brothers) is 38.