House passes immigrant detention bill that would be Trump’s first law to sign
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that requires the detainment of unauthorized migrants accused of theft and violent crimes, marking the first legislation that President Donald Trump can sign as Congress, with some bipartisan support, swiftly moved in line with his plans to crackdown on illegal immigration.
Passage of the Laken Riley Act, which was named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan man, shows just how sharply the political debate over immigration has shifted to the right following Trump’s election victory. Immigration policy has often been one of the most entrenched issues in Congress, but a crucial faction of 46 politically vulnerable Democrats joined with Republicans to lift the strict proposal to passage on a 263-156 vote tally.
“For decades, it has been almost impossible for our government to agree on solutions for the problems at our border and within our country,” said Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican. She called the legislation “perhaps the most significant immigration enforcement bill” to be passed by Congress in nearly three decades.
Still, the bill would require a massive ramp up in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s capabilities, but does not include any new funding.
Meanwhile, the new president has launched a slew of executive orders intended to seal off the border of Mexico to immigration and ultimately deport millions of migrants without permanent legal status in the U.S. On Wednesday, Trump also canceled refugee resettlement and his administration has signaled intentions to prosecute local law enforcement officials who do not enforce his new immigration policies.
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Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes visits Capitol Hill after Trump clemency
WASHINGTON (AP) — An extremist group leader who orchestrated an assault on the U.S. Capitol four years ago defended his role in the attack as he returned to the scene of the crime on Wednesday, while judges who sentenced hundreds of rioters criticized the presidential pardons that have freed scores of them from prison.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes visited Capitol Hill after he was released from prison as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping clemency order for the nearly 1,600 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in one of the serious cases brought by the Justice Department in the siege that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory and left more than 100 police officers injured. Rhodes was found guilty of orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Trump in power.
On Wednesday, Rhodes insisted members of the Oath Keepers were not responsible for the violence that day.
“I didn’t lead anything. So why should I feel responsible for that?” Rhodes said.
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Trump’s perceived enemies worry about losing pensions, getting audited and paying steep legal bills
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just criminal prosecutions that worry those who have crossed President Donald Trump. There are more prosaic kinds of retaliation: having difficulty renewing passports, getting audited by the IRS and losing federal pensions.
For the many people who have made an enemy of Trump, his return to the presidency this week sparked anxiety. Some are concerned they could go bankrupt trying to clear their names.
Less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump fired an opening shot, ordering the revocation of security clearances held by dozens of former intelligence officers who he believes sided with Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign or have turned against him. The loss of such clearances can be costly for former officials who work for defense contractors and require ongoing access to classified information to do their private sector jobs.
“Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution,” said John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser and has become a vocal critic of the president. “It’s a pretty long list. I think there are a lot of people who are very worried.”
Bolton was among a half dozen former officials who spoke to The Associated Press about their rising apprehensions about Trump’s potential for vengeance. In the hours before Trump took the oath of office on Monday, the officials noted, outgoing President Biden took the extraordinary step of issuing preemptive pardons for frequent Trump targets such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and lawmakers and staff who served on the congressional panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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160 national security staffers are sent home as the White House aligns its team to Trump’s agenda
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser on Wednesday sidelined about 160 National Security Council aides, sending them home while the administration reviews staffing and tries to align it with Trump’s agenda.
The career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday for an all-staff call and told they will be expected to be available to the council’s senior directors but would not need to report to the White House. The council provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president.
Brian McCormack, chief of staff to national security adviser Mike Waltz, delivered the news in a two-minute phone call, telling the detailees they “are directed to be on call and report to the office only if contacted by the NSC leadership.”
“As anyone who has had the privilege of working here in the white House knows, it’s a tremendous honor, to support the executive office of the president and the presidency itself,” said McCormack, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Associated Press. “We also know that every president is entitled to have a staff and the advisers that they need to implement the goals that the American people elected him to pursue.”
Trump, a Republican, is sidelining these nonpolitical experts on topics that range from counterterrorism to global climate policy at a time when the United States is dealing with a disparate set of complicated foreign policy matters, including conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Such structuring could make new policy experts brought in to the NSC less likely to speak up about policy differences and concerns.
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Winter storm spreads across the Deep South, creating icy danger and snowy fun
A major storm spread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across the southern United States on Wednesday, breaking snow records and treating the region to unaccustomed perils and wintertime joy.
From Texas through the Deep South, down into Florida and to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, snow and sleet made for accumulating ice in New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Florida and other major cities. In Alabama on Wednesday, the weight of the snow collapsed the dome of the Mobile Civic Center, which was being demolished to make way for a new entertainment facility.
At least three deaths were attributed to the cold as dangerous below-freezing temperatures with even colder wind chills settled in. Arctic air also plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze, grounding hundreds of flights. Government offices remained closed, as were classrooms for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.
New Englanders know what to do in weather like this: Terry Fraser of Cape Cod, Massachusetts didn’t have her trusty windshield scraper while visiting her new granddaughter in Brunswick, Georgia, so she used a plastic store discount card to remove the snow and ice from her rental SUV in a frozen hotel parking lot.
“This is what we do up north when you don’t have a scraper,” Fraser said. “Hey, it works.”
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Evacuations ordered as new fast-moving wildfire threatens mountain homes north of Los Angeles
CASTAIC, Calif. (AP) — Nearly 20,000 people were ordered to evacuate on Wednesday as a huge and fast-moving wildfire swept through rugged mountains near foothill communities north of Los Angeles, as parched Southern California endured another round of dangerous winds ahead of possible rain over the weekend.
The Hughes Fire broke out in the late morning and within hours charred nearly 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) of trees and brush, sending up plumes of dark smoke near Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.
Offramps along Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, were closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into wooded canyons. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from crossing the interstate and toward Castaic, where most of the 19,000 residents were ordered to evacuate. Another 15,000 people in the area were warned to prepare to leave at a moment’s notice, according to the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
Kayla Amara drove to Castaic’s Stonegate neighborhood to collect items from the home of a friend who had rushed to pick up her daughter at preschool. As Amara was packing the car, she learned the fire had exploded in size and decided to hose down the property.
“Other people are hosing down their houses, too. I hope there’s a house here to return to,” Amara said as police cars raced through the streets and flames ripped through trees on a hillside in the distance.
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To secure Gaza ceasefire, dealmakers overcame enemies’ deep distrust
Inside a lavish clubhouse on Doha’s waterfront, tensions strained by months of fruitless back-and-forth weighed on negotiators as the hour neared 3 a.m.
On the first floor, a Hamas delegation whose leader had once evaded an Israeli airstrike that killed seven family members combed through the details of yet another proposal to halt the war in Gaza. On the second floor, advisers to Israel’s intelligence chief, who had vowed to hunt down those responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, did the same.
With Qatari, U.S. and Egyptian mediators pushing for resolution, did the sides — such bitter enemies that they refused to speak directly to one another — at last have a deal to pause the fighting and bring dozens of Israeli hostages home?
“They were extremely suspicious towards each other. No trust at all,” said an Egyptian official involved in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The talks that night a week ago dragged on over disagreements about maps showing where Israel would begin withdrawing troops and its demand that Hamas provide a list of hostages who remained alive, he said.
“Both parties were looking at each word in the deal as a trap.”
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Teen fatally shoots a female student and himself at Antioch High School in Nashville, police say
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female student was killed and another student was wounded Wednesday in a shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria, police said.
The 17-year-old shooter, who was also a student at Antioch High School, later shot and killed himself with a handgun, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news conference. Police identified him as Solomon Henderson.
Police Chief John Drake said the shooter “confronted” a 16-year-old female student in the cafeteria and opened fire, killing her. Police identified her as Josselin Corea Escalante. Drake said police are looking into a motive and whether the students who were shot were targeted.
The male student who was wounded suffered a graze, and was treated and released from the hospital, Drake said. Another student was taken to a hospital for treatment of a facial injury that happened during a fall, Aaron said.
There were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting happened around 11 a.m. CDT, Aaron said. They were not in the immediate vicinity of the cafeteria and by the time they got down there the shooting was over and the gunman had killed himself, Aaron said.
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Afghans who fled Taliban rule urge Trump to lift refugee program suspension
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghans who fled after the Taliban seized power appealed Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump to exempt them from an order suspending the relocation of refugees to the United States, some saying they risked their lives to support U.S. troops.
An estimated 15,000 Afghans are waiting in Pakistan to be approved for resettlement in the U.S. via an American government program. It was set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media, aid agencies and rights groups, after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, when the Taliban took power.
But in his first days in office, Trump’s administration announced the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program would be suspended from Jan. 27 for at least three months. During that period, the White House said the secretary of homeland security in consultation with the secretary of state will submit a report to the president on whether the resumption of the program is in the U.S. interest.
Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before Jan. 27 have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration. Among those affected are the more than 1,600 Afghans cleared to resettle in the U.S. That number includes those who worked alongside American soldiers during the war as well as family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, where authorities have urged the international community to decide the fate of 1.45 million Afghan refugees, saying they cannot stay indefinitely.
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Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn agrees to terms with Jets to be head coach, AP source says
Aaron Glenn is back where his NFL journey began nearly 31 years ago.
He was a game-changing cornerback for the New York Jets then. Now he’s tasked with helping turn around the fortunes of the franchise.
The Jets and Glenn agreed to terms Wednesday on making the Detroit Lions defensive coordinator their head coach, a person with knowledge of the hiring told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team had not yet announced the hiring, which has first reported by ESPN.
Glenn, who oversaw the Lions’ defense the past four years, beat out 15 other candidates for the job as the Jets went through an extensive search to find their next coach.
And they ended up choosing one of their former players — a first-round draft pick in 1994 who was mentored by Bill Parcells, became one of the Jets’ best playmakers and developed into a well-respected and highly sought coach.
The Associated Press
