Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area will be required to wear body cameras, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said Thursday after seeing tear gas and other aggressive steps used against protesters. Community efforts to oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have ramped up in the nation’s third-largest city, where neighborhood groups have assembled to monitor ICE activity and film incidents involving agents. More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since September.
Separately, President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to deploy National Guard troops, but the strategy was halted last week by a different judge.
Ellis last week said agents in the area must wear badges, and she banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. “I’m having concerns about my order being followed,” the judge said.
U.S. Justice Department attorney Sean Skedzielewski laid blame on “one-sided and selectively edited media reports.” He also said it wouldn’t be possible to distribute cameras immediately.
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Trump administration appeals judge’s decision in anti-DEI case
The Trump administration is appealing a federal judge’s decision blocking the Education Department’s attempts to forbid diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the nation’s schools.
The Education Department filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday following a lower court’s decision in August. The initial ruling in Maryland found the agency violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from schools and colleges that continued with DEI efforts.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association. It centers on two Education Department memos ordering schools and universities to end all “race-based decision-making.”
The memos have been on hold since April when multiple federal judges blocked the anti-DEI measures.
Kremlin hails Putin-Trump call as ‘frank and trusting’
The Kremlin said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call with U.S. President Donald Trump was “frank and trusting.”
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters that the call that was initiated by the Russian leader and lasted nearly 2 ½ hours.
Ushakov said that Putin congratulated Trump on the Gaza ceasefire, noting that “the U.S. President’s peacekeeping activities have been highly praised in the Middle East, in America itself, and in most countries around the world.”
Turning to Ukraine, the Russian leader noted that possible supplies of the U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine will not change the situation on the battlefield but will inflict significantly damage U.S.-Russian relations, Ushakov said.
The Kremlin adviser specifically noted that Putin highly assessed Melania Trump’s efforts to help reunite Russian and Ukrainian children with their families.
Ushakov said that preparations for Putin’s meeting with Trump in Budapest will start with a phone call between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats.
Trump calls for countries to oppose special fee meant to reduce fossil fuel usage in container ships
The president on his social media site said he’s “outraged” by a vote planned on Friday by the International Maritime Organization to impose a global fee on the carbon emissions produced by container ships.
Trump urged other nations in the organization to vote no, saying on Truth Social that the United States “will not adhere” to the fee “in any way, shape, or form” if it passes. In April, the organization agreed to the framework for the fee that is meant to reduce the use of fossil fuels that are contributing to climate change.
But Trump, who has imposed sweeping tariffs on goods coming into the U.S., called the fee a “scam” that could worsen inflation.
“We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers,” he posted.
Thune says Senate will consider Russia sanctions legislation
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says the Senate will consider bipartisan legislation to impose steep tariffs on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports in the coming weeks as President Donald Trump announced that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Thune said the Senate will consider the bill “in the next 30 days” and that the legislation’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, will introduce revised legislation soon.
The White House has been working with lawmakers on the bill, which has stalled for months as Republican leaders waited for Trump to give his approval.
“I don’t want to commit to a hard deadline, but it will be soon,” Thune said.
Trump said Thursday he will meet with Putin in Hungary in an effort to end the war in Ukraine, though a date has not been set.
Military retirees criticize possible National Guard deployment to Chicago
Retired military leaders are criticizing the possibility of a National Guard deployment to the Chicago area as inappropriate and dangerous.
Randy Manner, a retired Army major general, was among several former military leaders who appeared with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday in Chicago amid an ongoing federal immigration crackdown.
“Soldiers are trained to eliminate threats, not to deescalate tensions or protect constitutional rights during protests,” Manner said. “When we blur that line, we risk turning our own streets into battlefield and our citizens into potential enemies.”
A judge has temporarily blocked a Chicago area deployment saying the federal government hasn’t presented evidence to justify it.
Pritzker and other local leaders have said military deployments aren’t needed or wanted.
Coal sales in western states fall flat
The Interior Department rejected a mining company’s bid for 1.3 million tons of coal beneath a national forest in Utah, marking the third proposed coal sale from public lands in the West to fall through this month.
The failed sales mark a setback in President Donald Trump’s push to revive a coal mining industry that’s been in decline for almost two decades.
Interior officials rejected the sole bid received for coal on a proposed 120-acre (49-hectare) lease on the Manti-La Sal National Forest in central Utah because it did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act.
The leasing act requires companies to pay fair market value for coal from public lands.
The department last week rejected a bid for 167 million tons of coal in Montana and indefinitely postponed an even larger sale in Wyoming.Energy Dept. offers $1.6B loan guarantee to upgrade power lines across Midwest
The Energy Department said Thursday it has finalized a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to a subsidiary of one of the nation’s largest power companies to upgrade nearly 5,000 miles of transmission lines across five states, mostly in the Midwest.
AEP Transmission will upgrade power lines in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia to enhance enhance grid reliability and capacity and help meet surging electricity demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.
Parent company American Electric Power primarily produces electricity from coal, natural gas and nuclear power, along with renewable resources such as wind and hydroelectric power..
The move comes as the Trump administration has moved to cancel $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.
Penn declines Trump’s proposal to reshape higher education
The University of Pennsylvania is the latest campus to reject President Donald Trump’s higher-education “compact.”
The Ivy League university told Trump officials that it “respectfully declines” to sign the agreement, according to a campus message from Penn President J. Larry Jameson. The message cited “substantive concerns” but did not elaborate.
It follows other rejections from Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Penn faced pressure to turn the deal down, including from its faculty senate and state Democrats.
The Trump administration invited nine universities to become initial signatories of the compact, offering “multiple positive benefits” including favorable access to federal funding. In exchange, universities were asked to make commitments aligned with Trump’s agenda.
It asked for commitments to remove race from admissions decisions, to promote conservative views on campus, to limit protests and to ensure “institutional neutrality” on current events, among other provisions
Trump warns Hamas ‘we will have no choice but to go in and kill them’ if bloodshed persists in Gaza
President Donald Trump on Thursday warned Hamas “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them” if internal bloodshed persists in Gaza.
The grim warning from Trump came after he previously downplayed the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire went into effect last week.
Trump said Tuesday that Hamas had taken out “a couple of gangs that were very bad” and had killed a number of gang members. “That didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you,” he said.
▶ Read more about Gaza
Trump says he’ll meet with Putin in Hungary to try to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’ll meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Hungary to try to resolve the war in Ukraine, but a date has yet to be determined.
Trump spoke with Putin on Thursday as he considers Ukraine’s push for long-range missiles. The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.
▶ Read more about Russia-Ukraine War
Massachusetts Gov. Healy dismisses Trump’s threats to move World Cup as ‘political theatre’
Democratic Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to move World Cup matches scheduled to take place in Massachusetts as “political theatre.”
“Oh, God. Come on. You know, that’s just more political theater, so I don’t really pay that too much mind,” she said, when asked about Trump’s comments by a reporter at a press conference in Boston.
Healey said “it doesn’t make any sense” for the matches to be moved, and emphasized that Massachusetts has some of the lowest crime statistics in the U.S. She said Patriots Owner Robert Kraft and others have been working hard planning for the events, set to take place at Gillette Stadium, and they have safety measures “under control.”
“But that’s another day, another Donald Trump comment. So you got to understand what that is,” Healey told reporters.
Illinois governor applauds judge’s ruling requiring immigration agents wear body cameras
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is praising a federal judge’s ruling requiring federal immigration agents in the Chicago to wear body cameras.
Pritzker, a Democrat, told reporters Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s statements about arrests are often inaccurate.
That includes last month’s fatal shooting of a suburban Chicago man. DHS officials initially said an officer was “seriously” injured but local police body camera showed him saying his injuries were “nothing major.”
“They clearly lie about what goes on,” Pritzker said. “It’s hard for us to know right away what the truth is.”
Judge permanently blocks Trump administration from withholding $34 million to protect New York’s transportation system from terrorist attacks
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said in a ruling Thursday that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the earmarked money, based on the Big Apple’s “sanctuary city” protections for illegal immigrants, was “arbitrary, capricious, and a blatant violation of the law.”
The post-9/11 Transit Security Grant Program, Kaplan noted, was created with instructions that money be allocated solely on the basis of terrorism risk. The judge had previously issued an order temporarily freezing the move.
The state sued Department of Homeland Security after it said last month that it was eliminating funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s transit system.
The MTA said its allocation, the largest of any transit agency, pays for targeted counterterrorism patrols, security equipment, infrastructure enhancements, cybersecurity technology and weapons detection technologies.
Crowdsourcing fund launches to provide free legal representation for immigrants
A new initiative launched Thursday seeks to provide immigrants with free access to lawyers by donating funds to legal service providers that work in legal deserts, areas near U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention centers, or communities with large immigrant populations.
Defending Our Neighbors Fund, created by the American Civil Liberties Union, United We Dream and Abundant Futures Fund, aims to raise $30 million. It already raised $10 million before its public launch.
Money will go to nonprofit legal service providers that have seen their budgets shrink, such as those providing representation for unaccompanied child immigrants.
“So one lawyer can mean one more family kept whole. One fund can mean one more future protected,” Greisa Martinez-Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, said.
Trump says he’s on the phone with Putin now
The U.S. president wrote on his social media site that he is on the phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“I am speaking to President Putin now. The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one, and I will report the contents, as will President Putin, at its conclusion. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said on Truth Social late Thursday morning.
The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Details on bodycams for Chicago-area immigration agents will be discussed Monday
In response to a federal judge saying she will require immigration agents in the Chicago area to wear body cameras, an attorney for the federal government said they don’t have body cameras.
Sean Skedzielewski also said the Department of Homeland Security has limited resources to hand those out immediately.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis responded: “I understand that. I would not be expecting agents to wear body worn cameras they do not have.”
She said details could be worked out starting at an additional hearing on Monday.
House Democrats say AG Pam Bondi’s response to Epstein subpoena has been ‘completely insufficient’
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, is sending a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that criticizes the Department of Justice’s handling of a congressional subpoena for the investigative files into the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“Your response to our bipartisan subpoena has been completely insufficient,” Garcia writes. “The only production of documents by DOJ consisted almost entirely of documents that were either already public or in the Committee’s possession.”
Garcia said that the Justice Department has not turned over any documents since Aug. 22.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly pointed to the House Oversight Committee’s inquiry as he tries to stave off an effort to hold a vote on a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release the files.
Judge dismisses defamation lawsuit filed by IRS agents against lawyer for Hunter Biden
A federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by two IRS agents against a lawyer for Hunter Biden.
Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler alleged in their complaint in federal court in Washington, D.C., that attorney Abbe Lowell had defamed them when he complained about leaks of grand jury information about the tax crimes investigation of Biden, who is the son of President Joe Biden.
But U.S. District Judge Richard Leon dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, saying among other things that the statements at issue are constitutionally protected opinions and that the plaintiffs failed to show that Lowell had acted with actual malic
Johnson said he wants to return to being ‘happy Mike’
House Speaker Mike Johnson ended his news conference Thursday on the federal government shutdown a bit riled up but quickly caught himself.
“I don’t like being mad Mike. I want to be happy Mike,” Johnson said, prompting laughter from colleagues and reporters in the room. “I want to be a happy warrior, but I’m so upset about this. God bless America. We’re done.”
Johnson says he has ‘no idea’ how the shutdown will end
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s at a loss on how to answer an often-asked question from reporters. How will the federal government shutdown end?
“We have no idea,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s comments came as he kicked off the daily news conference that congressional leaders of both parties have been holding as they attempt to shape public opinion on the shutdown, which began Oct. 1
The comments underscore the lack of progress that has been made in resolving the impasse. Johnson said Democrats have offered “no common-sense path forward for ending this situation.”
Judge slams Border Patrol for high-speed chase through Chicago neighborhood
At Thursday’s federal court hearing, Judge Sara L. Ellis also raised concerns about a high-speed car chase Tuesday on the Chicago’s South Side as Border Patrol agents pursued a driver before using tear gas on protesters and residents who were gathering in the residential neighborhood.
She said that while some agents may be accustomed to working along the U.S.-Mexico border, Chicago is an “urban, densely populated area, where appropriate crowd control is important, where trying to apprehend people is very, very different.”
“I have to tell you there’s a reason the Chicago Police Department has policies about car chases and where they occur and when you need to stop,” she said.
Judge to require bodycams, accuses immigration officers of not following order restricting tear gas
A federal judge on Thursday said she will require that immigration officers in the Chicago area must wear body cameras. She also said they did not follow a previous order from her barring the use of tear gas and other weapons on peaceful protesters and journalists.
U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis in Chicago said she was “profoundly concerned” about reports of tear gas use since last her previous ruling last week. That decision also said federal agents must wear badges.
“I’m not happy,” Ellis said. “I’m really not happy.”
Ellis demanded that the operation’s field director appears in court Monday. She noted instances where news outlets have reported that tear gas was deployed without giving people warning and images of federal agents in plainclothes without their alphanumeric identifiers carrying out immigration operations.
“I live in Chicago, if folks haven’t noticed,” she said. “And I’m not blind.”
Sean Skedzielewski, an attorney for the federal government, laid blame with “one-sided and selectively edited media reports.”
What a new poll shows about Americans’ views on the shutdown
Most see it as a significant problem as it stretches through its third week with no end in sight, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows. And Americans are blaming all of the major players involved.
Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, the poll shows.
“Trump’s blaming the Democrats, and the Democrats are blaming the Republicans,” said Jason Beck, a Republican from Utah. “We’re stuck because there’s no middle ground anymore.”
The poll also finds that more Americans favor than oppose extending health insurance subsidies, which Democrats are demanding to end the stalemate. A large share, 42%, have no opinion, suggesting many are not closely following the core dispute.
US cruise ship operator says it’s avoiding China due to retaliatory port fees
Miami-based Oceania Cruises, part of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, told the Associated Press on Thursday that they are now “revising select itineraries” in Asia and replacing port calls in mainland China, due to new port fees that China imposed on American-owned or -operated vessels, which came into effect this week.
China imposed the tit-for-tat fees in retaliation for similar port fees that the U.S. slapped on Chinese-owned or -operated ships docking in the U.S. American ships are subjected to a 400 yuan ($56) per net ton fee for each voyage if they berth at Chinese ports.
“Ships can no longer effectively visit mainland Chinese ports,” an Oceania Cruises spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.
“We share in the disappointment of these necessary changes and are committed to providing our guests with itineraries that deliver exceptional destination experiences,” the Oceania Cruises spokesperson added.
