Sweeping raids, giant camps and mass deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 immigration plans
Former President Donald Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up people already living in the United States without legal permission on a vast scale and detain them in camps while they wait to be expelled. The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration and amount to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of immigrants would be banned from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.
Trump asks judge to televise federal election trial
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have told a judge she should permit his trial on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election to be televised live from the courtroom. It was the first time Trump formally weighed in on the issue. His motion to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal election trial in Washington, came after similar requests made by several media organizations and was filed Friday. The request is likely to face an uphill battle, given that federal rules of criminal procedure — and the Supreme Court — generally prohibit cameras in federal courtrooms.
Johnson pitches bill to avert government shutdown that faces an uncertain fate
Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday pitched House Republicans on a convoluted plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of next week, proposing a bill that would temporarily extend funding for some federal agencies until late January and through early February for others. It omits funding for Ukraine or Israel and faces an uncertain fate, as many conservative House Republicans have demanded that any spending plan include deep spending cuts, and Democrats and some GOP senators have questioned the idea of staggering the deadlines for funding federal programs. A vote on the plan could come Tuesday, mere days before the Friday midnight deadline for keeping the government funded.
Ohio voted to protect abortion rights. Could Florida be next?
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, campaigns to protect abortion rights have galvanized voters in state after state — most recently in Ohio. That triumphant streak has propelled campaigns for similar abortion measures in swing, or potentially swing, states, including Florida. Like in Ohio, Florida’s government is controlled by Republicans and has put in place a six-week abortion ban, with its enactment pending approval by the state’s Supreme Court. The parallels between the two states give Florida organizers hope for success, despite steep obstacles that include a court review of the proposed ballot measure and a costly petition-gathering process.
They wanted to get sober. They got a nightmare instead.
Prosecutors and tribal leaders call it one of the largest, most exploitative frauds in Arizona’s history: a scheme in which hundreds of rehab centers provided shoddy or nonexistent addiction treatment to thousands of vulnerable Native Americans that cost the state as much as $1 billion. Scores of people ended up homeless, still struggling with untreated addiction, officials say. In the grimmest cases, tribal members died of overdoses inside the sober homes where they had sought help. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, along with Gov. Katie Hobbs, announced a crackdown against the treatment centers earlier this year.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, regional rivals, call for Gaza cease-fire
The leaders of Iran and Saudi Arabia, regional rivals who restored diplomatic ties this year, met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday at a summit where they called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and unconditional delivery of humanitarian aid to the enclave, which Israeli forces have besieged since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. The two Islamic countries, which support opposing factions in proxy conflicts across the region, first announced their diplomatic breakthrough in March, after years of hostility, in a deal brokered by China. But it was unclear whether the shift would lead to a lasting detente between Saudi Arabia’s Sunni monarchy and Iran’s Shiite government.
Major pro-Palestinian march staged in London as police ramp up security
Hundreds of thousands of people marched through central London in a huge pro-Palestinian demonstration Saturday, a tense day in which police battled with a small right-wing group to keep order on some city streets. The large march in support of the Palestinian cause coincided with Armistice Day, when Britain commemorates those who fought in World War I and subsequent conflicts, and followed days of debate about whether the protest should be allowed to go ahead. A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police Service said Saturday afternoon that about 300,000 people had attended the pro-Palestinian March.
Russia launches missile at Kyiv for first time in weeks, Ukraine says
Ukraine’s military said Saturday it had shot down a Russian ballistic missile hurtling toward Kyiv, the first such attack on the capital in weeks, while cities across the country were targeted by a Russian air barrage that damaged several buildings. Ukrainian authorities said they had shot down 19 drones out of 31 launched by Russian forces overnight. The fate of the other drones remained unclear. Two loud bangs were heard in Kyiv around 8 a.m. Saturday, and two trails of smoke were visible in the skies over the city before air-raid sirens went off. Ukrainians officials said the booms were the work of air-defense systems that destroyed the missile.
How a decaying warship beached on a tiny shoal provoked China’s ire
For more than two decades, it has been an unlikely flashpoint in the South China Sea: a rusty, World War II-era ship beached on a tiny reef that has become a symbol of Philippine resistance against Beijing. The Philippine government ran the vessel aground in 1999 on the Second Thomas Shoal, a contested reef 120 miles off the coast of the western province of Palawan. The dilapidated warship, known as the Sierra Madre, will never sail again. But it has remained there ever since, a marker of the Philippines’ claim to the shoal and an effort to prevent China from seizing more of the disputed waters.
Texas Bishop loudly critical of Pope Francis is removed
Pope Francis on Saturday fired a bishop in Texas who was one of his loudest American critics within the Catholic Church, a highly rare dismissal that appeared to reflect the growing rift between the Vatican and a more conservative wing of the church. The Vatican said only that the pope “relieved” the bishop, Joseph Strickland, from the governance of his diocese in Tyler, Texas. Strickland was arguably the most prominent figure representing traditionalist American Catholics who see Francis as dangerously liberal on social issues such as divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage, and on theological issues including his discouragement of the Latin Mass.
By wire sources