News from Multiple Perspectives

German Galushchenko was detained by Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau while trying to leave the country.

India's win against Pakistan takes the defending champions through to the next round of cricket's T20 World Cup.

The move, in coordination with the US, is the latest implementation of the ceasefire agreement with Kurdish-led forces.

A sign for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seen on the Saint Elizabeth campus in Washington, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) 2026-02-15T18:49:03Z WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise Sunday in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security . A partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump’s team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis last month. Congress is on recess until Feb. 23, and both sides appear dug into their positions. The impasse affects agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); The work at ICE and CBP goes on unabated because Trump’s tax and spending cut law from 2025 provided billions more to those agencies that can be tapped for deportation operations. About 90% of DHS employees were to continue working during the shutdown, but do so without pay — and missed paychecks could mean financial hardships. Last year there was a record 43-day government shutdown . White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration was unwilling to agree to Democrats’ demands that federal officers clearly identify themselves, remove masks during operations and display unique ID numbers. “I don’t like the masks, either,” Homan said, But, he said, “These men and women have to protect themselves.” Democrats also want to require immigration agents to wear body cameras and mandate judicial warrants for arrests on private property. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats are only asking for federal agents to abide by rules followed by law enforcement agencies around the country. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); “And the question that Americans are asking is, ‘Why aren’t Republicans going along with these commonsense proposals?’” Schumer said. “They’re not crazy. They’re not way out. They’re what every police department in America does.” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said he could back Democrats calls to equip immigration officers with body cameras and would support efforts to bolster training. But he balked at their demands that federal officer remove masks and clearly identify themselves, noting some officers taking part in immigration enforcement operations have faced doxing and other harassment. “What are you going to do, expose their faces so you can intimidate their families?” Mullins said. “What we want is ICE to be able to do their job. And we would love for local law enforcement and for states to cooperate with us.” Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, a Trump ally who had pushed for a two-week extension of DHS funding while negotiations continued, said it was “shortsighted of Democrats to walk away” from talks. Trump made enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign for the White House and he promised to be aggressive in detaining and deporting people living in the United States without legal permission. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); DHS reports it has deported more than 675,000 migrants since Trump’s return to office last year and claims some 2.2 million others have “self-deported” as the Republican president has made his immigration crackdown a priority. “President Trump is not going to back away from the mission, the mission that American people said they wanted him to complete, and that is securing our border and making sure that we actually do interior enforcement,” Britt said. Homan was on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Schumer and Mullin appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Britt was interviewed on “Fox News Sunday.” AAMER MADHANI Madhani covers the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Italy's Federica Brignone shows her gold medal in an alpine ski, women's giant slalom race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) 2026-02-15T16:34:47Z MILAN (AP) — Federica Brignone and Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo glided into history at the Winter Olympics on Sunday in very different ways. Host nation Italy was delighted as Brignone’s sensational comeback continued with a second gold medal of the Olympics, still in pain after a badly broken leg last year. Klaebo has the most gold medals of any Winter Olympian in history with nine after taking gold with Norway’s cross-country men’s relay team. Brignone does it again Winning one gold medal in super-G made Brignone feel like she was living in a movie. What do great movies get? A sequel. The Italian skier known as the Tiger was unbeatable in the giant slalom for her second gold of the Olympics and fifth career medal, breaking her own record as the oldest women’s Alpine skiing Olympic champion for good measure. There were two silver medalists as Sara Hector and Thea Louise Stjernesund finished in exactly the same time and bowed to Brignone to mark her victory. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); After breaking multiple bones in March, Brignone needed two surgeries and 42 stitches to put her leg back together. She only returned to skiing in January. Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States was 11th and has now failed to win a medal in eight straight Olympic races since the Winter Games in 2018. Record ninth gold medal for Norwegian skier Klaebo stands alone as the most successful Winter Olympian of all time after winning his ninth career gold medal in cross-country skiing. Norway’s Prime Minister was watching as Klaebo anchored his team’s relay gold Sunday. That broke a tie on eight gold medals with three other Norwegians: cross-country skiers Marit Bjoergen and Bjoern Daehlie and biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen. Klaebo could get into double figures by the end of the Milan Cortina Games. His next chances for a 10th gold are in the team sprint on Wednesday or the 50-kilometer race on Saturday. He’s still only 29. Another win for the moguls king Mikael Kingsbury of Canada has won almost everything there is to win in moguls skiing. When they added a new Olympic event, he won that too . Kingsbury took gold, his fifth career Olympic medal, in the inaugural dual moguls event Sunday, three days after settling for silver in the traditional moguls event in a surprise win for Australian Cooper Woods. Britain won its first-ever Olympic gold in any snow sport with victory for Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale in team snowboardcross. Biathlon saw a first Olympic gold for Italy as Lisa Vitozzi won the women’s pursuit , hours after Sweden’s Martin Ponsiluoma’s surprise gold in the men’s event. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Still to come Later Sunday, Dutch speedskater Jutta Leerdam and Erin Jackson of the United States compete for the women’s 500-meter gold. Leerdam, whose fiance is influencer and boxer Jake Paul, is aiming for a second gold after winning the 1,000 , while Jackson won the 500 at the 2022 Olympics and carried the U.S. flag at the opening ceremony in Milan. Medals are also on offer in the women’s ski jumping large hill event and team skeleton. The pairs figure skating competition begins with the free skate and the United States plays Germany in men’s hockey aiming to secure a quarterfinal place. ___ AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Ronan Murphy snuggles with his mom, Andrea, while looking at the snow falling outside his home while brother, Connor sits nearby in Ayer, Mass., on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum) 2026-02-15T12:37:39Z As the definition of autism has widened, there’s been a growing push to create a new diagnosis, called profound autism, for those who need constant and lifelong care. The reason? To ensure that they get the support and services they need. Judith Ursitti, president of the Profound Autism Alliance, said people in this category now lack appropriate treatments, support and enough providers trained to handle their level of care. And the vast majority of clinical research doesn’t include them. “If you don’t have research, you won’t have treatments. You won’t have achievable services and supports,” said Ursitti, whose adult son has profound autism. “There are people across the spectrum who have high support needs that are intermittent. The difference with our population is they’re constant.” Autism rates have been rising for decades, and two of the main reasons for the increase have, in a strange twist, taken some of the focus off of helping people with round-the-clock needs. The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is now very broad, including many people with low support needs. Also, better awareness of the condition has helped many more children get diagnosed than in the past — and most of those cases are relatively mild. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); At the same time, the Trump Administration is promoting unproven and debunked claims about what causes autism, which experts say muddles efforts to understand the condition and fuels misinformation that threatens public health, even as officials funnel more money into research. Overall in the U.S., an estimated 1 in 31 children has autism spectrum disorder. Researchers estimate around a quarter have “profound autism,” a term introduced in 2021 by a group of experts, the Lancet Commission. It describes people who need constant care for life, have a certain level of intellectual disability and are nonverbal or minimally verbal. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); In the past, these people may have been diagnosed with autistic disorder – one of five subtypes, along with Asperger’s, of a diagnosis called pervasive developmental disorders. But in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association removed that diagnosis and created autism spectrum disorder. Some in the autism community worry that creating a separate diagnosis of profound autism would reduce attention on the broader spectrum and the individual needs of everyone on it. Dena Gassner, an autistic senior research scientist at Drexel University and mother of an autistic adult with moderate support needs, said she struggles with the idea of assigning someone the label of profound autism. She said it could be stigmatizing. She said there’s nothing wrong with being autistic; the problem lies in “the massive lack of supports and services” in our society. “We need to come together in a unified voice to talk about services for the entirety of the spectrum.” Andy Shih, chief science officer for Autism Speaks, said no matter where people fall on the debate about profound autism, “there’s absolutely no doubt that we need to elevate awareness about the needs of this group.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. LAURA UNGAR Ungar covers medicine and science on the AP’s Global Health and Science team. She has been a health journalist for more than two decades. twitter mailto

His detention comes as he faces legal proceedings after being dismissed in a corruption scandal.

Munich, Los Angeles, and Toronto saw the largest crowds, with smaller rallies also taking place in Tel Aviv and Libson.

Relaxed visa rules for British and Canadian passport holders will come into force on 17 February.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), commonly known as Doctors Without Borders, suspended noncritical medical operations at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, citing security concerns. MSF said it made the decision, as of Jan. 20, due to concerns about the management of the hospital and what it described as a pattern of unacceptable incidents within the compound. The suspension had not been widely reported at the time, and it was not immediately clear when the decision was first publicly posted. MSF’s frequently asked questions page, where the update appears, shows it was last revised on Feb. 11. US-BACKED GAZA AID GROUP SLAMS DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, ACCUSES IT OF SPREADING 'FALSE' CLAIMS In recent months, the international medical humanitarian aid group said staff and patients have reported the presence of armed and sometimes masked men , intimidation, arbitrary arrests of patients and the suspected movement of weapons on hospital grounds. "While none of these incidents occurred in parts of the hospital compound where MSF works, they pose serious security threats to our teams and patients," MSF wrote on its website. "MSF formally expressed its strong concern to relevant authorities and emphasized the incompatibility of such violations with our medical mission. Hospitals must remain neutral, civilian spaces, free from military presence or activity, to ensure the safe and impartial delivery of medical care," the group continued. "MSF calls on all armed groups, Hamas, and Israeli forces to respect medical facilities and ensure the protection of civilians." HAMAS PLOTS INFILTRATION AT US-BACKED GAZA AID SITE, FORCES TEMPORARY SHUTDOWN In a statement issued Saturday, Nasser Hospital rejected what it called "false, unsubstantiated, and misleading allegations" by MSF regarding the presence of weapons or armed groups inside the facility. "These allegations are factually incorrect, irresponsible, and pose a serious risk to a protected civilian medical facility. The Gaza Strip is under an extreme and prolonged state of emergency resulting from systematic attacks on civilian institutions," it said. "Under these conditions, isolated unlawful actions by uncontrolled individuals and groups have occurred across society, including attempts by some to carry weapons ." Hospital officials said a civilian police presence had been arranged to help safeguard patients, staff and infrastructure and called on MSF to retract its claims and reaffirm its commitment to medical neutrality. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday on X that it has intelligence indicating Hamas is using Nasser Hospital as a headquarters and military post, reiterating long-standing allegations that the militant group embeds operations within civilian facilities in Gaza. "For over two years, the IDF and the defense establishment has warned about the cynical use by terrorist organizations in Gaza of hospitals and humanitarian shelters as human shields to conceal terrorist activity," it wrote. Hamas has previously denied using hospitals or other civilian facilities for military purposes.

A wave of recent reporting and newly released documents detailing the relationship between former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Jeffrey Epstein has reignited claims that Epstein worked for Israel’s Mossad, a theory Israeli intelligence sources and senior political leaders are forcefully rejecting. Ex-Israeli intelligence officials told Fox News Digital that Epstein never worked for Mossad, describing the allegation as baseless and inconsistent with how the agency operates. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly pushed back on the claims, writing on X: "Jeffrey Epstein's unusual close relationship with Ehud Barak doesn't suggest Epstein worked for Israel. It proves the opposite." PRINCESS SOFIA OF SWEDEN BREAKS SILENCE ON EPSTEIN ENCOUNTERS AFTER DOJ FILE RELEASE In the same post, Netanyahu escalated his criticism, writing: "Stuck on his election loss from over two decades ago, Barak has for years obsessively attempted to undermine Israeli democracy by working with the anti-Zionist radical left in failed attempts to overthrow the elected Israeli government." Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also sharply dismissed the accusations, writing : "As a former Israeli Prime Minister, with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100% certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad ran a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false. Epstein’s conduct, both the criminal and the merely despicable, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel. Epstein never worked for the Mossad." Ex-Mossad director Yossi Cohen also rejected the claims in a podcast interview with The Free Press , saying Epstein had "absolutely nothing" to do with the Mossad — "not an agent, not an operative, nothing." The strong denials come amid renewed scrutiny of emails, financial records and communications included in U.S. Justice Department materials and other public reporting, none of which indicate that Epstein cooperated with Israeli intelligence. Barak, who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and later as defense minister in Netanyahu’s government, has become one of Netanyahu’s most vocal political opponents. PRINCE WILLIAM’S ENVIRONMENTAL CHARITY REPORTED OVER PARTNER’S EPSTEIN TIES In a statement to Fox News Digital, Barak’s office fired back, describing Netanyahu’s remarks as politically motivated and reiterating that he regrets ever meeting Epstein while denying any wrongdoing. "Barak has repeatedly and publicly stated that he regrets ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein. There is no credible allegation—none—that Barak engaged in any illegal or inappropriate conduct," the statement said. Barak’s office also called Netanyahu’s attacks "the desperate acts of a failed and panicked politician" and "a pathetic attempt to divert attention from his catastrophic record," accusing the prime minister of attempting to shift blame for national failures. Newly surfaced materials continue to document Barak’s personal and professional interactions with Epstein, including stays at Epstein’s New York apartment and meetings arranged through the financier. EXCLUSIVE: EPSTEIN EMAILS RELEASED AS DOJ SAYS NO CRIMINAL OR INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT BY TRUMP Emails cited in document releases describe the apartment as being used by Barak and his then-wife during visits to the United States, with staff coordinating logistics and maintenance requests tied to the property. Other communications referenced financial ties and introductions facilitated by Epstein, including meetings with prominent business figures, as well as broader correspondence and internal notes referencing allegations, warnings and speculation surrounding Epstein’s activities. Barak has acknowledged meeting Epstein multiple times and said he regrets the association. In a previous interview, he said he never witnessed improper behavior and never participated in anything illegal. "At times during my occasional visits to the United States, I was sometimes a participant in a breakfast or lunch or dinner at his New York townhouse, together with respected American public figures," Barak said. "At no point in my dealings with him did I ever witness any improper behavior, and I certainly never participated in anything like that."

The Department of War (DOW) said Sunday that U.S. forces interdicted a vessel in the Indo-Pacific after it attempted to evade a quarantine order issued by the Trump administration. In a statement on X, the DOW said the Veronica III was boarded without incident while it was operating in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility. "The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down. No other nation has the reach, endurance, or will to do this," the government account wrote. "International waters are not sanctuary. By land, air, or sea, we will find you and deliver justice," it added. "The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies freedom of movement in the maritime domain." US MILITARY SEIZES ANOTHER FUGITIVE OIL TANKER LINKED TO VENEZUELA The Veronica III is the latest in a series of high-profile maritime seizures by the U.S. military aimed at enforcing sanctions and curbing the export of Venezuelan oil. President Donald Trump announced a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela in mid-December, as Washington increased its naval presence in the Caribbean to put pressure on now-former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. According to OpenSanctions , the Veronica III is listed on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals sanctions list. US COAST GUARD PURSUES THIRD ‘DARK FLEET’ OIL TANKER AS TRUMP TARGETS VENEZUELAN SANCTIONS EVASION NETWORK The tanker, a large crude oil carrier built in 2006 and flagged in Panama, has been linked to the transport of hundreds of thousands of metric tons of sanctioned Iranian oil and is affiliated with a Chinese ship-management company that has also been sanctioned. OpenSanctions notes that the ship has previously sailed under different names and flags as part of efforts to evade sanctions and disguise its activities at sea. The Veronica III was among the vessels sanctioned by Treasury in December 2024 as part of a broader action targeting 35 other entities and tankers involved in transporting illicit Iranian oil to foreign markets.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appealed to European leaders in Munich by stressing Christian and cultural bonds that are no longer universal.

President Trump called President Isaac Herzog of Israel “disgraceful” because he has not yet pardoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial.

President Trump called President Isaac Herzog of Israel “disgraceful” because he has not yet pardoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial.

This week, ProPublica published a story I wrote based in part on interviews with parents and children being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. I had asked some of the parents to see if their children would be willing to write to me about their experiences inside. More than three dozen did. One of those letters came from 9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya from Colombia. Her letter was written on a piece of notebook paper. She decorated it with rainbows and hearts. And she drew a portrait of herself and her mom wearing their detention uniforms and government-issued ID badges. I had initially met Maria a few weeks earlier, when I managed to get inside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. It’s just south of San Antonio. Maria Antonia, her mother and more than 3,500 people, half of them minors, had cycled through there since the Trump administration reopened it early last year. I went in mid-January, before the facility burst into public view when Liam Conejo Ramos — the 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat detained with his father in Minneapolis — was sent there, with the aim of hearing about the conditions in which children were being held, from the children themselves. After signing in, I passed through a metal detector and a series of locked doors to get to the visitation room. Maria Antonia and another girl her age were quietly playing fast-moving hand games, when her mother, Maria Alejandra Montoya, called her over to introduce me.   Maria Antonia, wearing her long brown hair in a ponytail, didn’t hesitate. She scooted forward to the front edge of her chair, pushed her thick white-framed glasses up on her nose and dove right in.  I asked her how she and her mom had ended up there. Well, she said, we had a plan to go to “Disneylandia” but instead ended up in “Dilleylandia.” Then she told me the story. She lived in Colombia with her grandmother and regularly traveled back and forth to the United States to visit her mother, who had been in the U.S. since 2018. (Maria Alejandra had overstayed a visa but since married a U.S. citizen and was applying for a green card.) In August, the whole family had vacationed together in Disney World. It was so fun, Maria Antonia said, that she begged her mom to go back for the park’s annual Halloween celebration. They booked tickets for a 10-day vacation during her school holidays. She lit up telling me about how she had planned out a “101 Dalmatians” costume — she would be Cruella de Vil and her mom and stepdad the spotted dogs. The whole getup was so bulky it basically filled her entire suitcase.  But everything started going wrong as soon as she arrived at the Miami International Airport on Oct. 2. She was supposed to be dropped off with her mom by the flight attendant accompanying her. But she said was intercepted by immigration officers who took her into a room to be interrogated while her mother was taken to be questioned in a separate room. They were asking me all kinds of questions I had absolutely no idea how to answer , I recall her telling me (I was not allowed any notebooks or voice recorders inside the detention facility). I kept just saying over and over again: “I can tell you my name and my birthday and my mom’s name and her birthday and that I am from Colombia. That’s about it.” I didn’t know what else to tell them . After what they both said were hours of questioning, they were put in a cold room together. Maria Alejandra’s phone was confiscated. They had no way to contact her stepdad, who was waiting for them in the airport. Maria Antonia said they had no idea why they were being detained if her mother was applying for a green card and she had a valid tourist visa.  Maria Antonia had learned English at her private school in Medellin. She overheard one immigration officer tell another that if she had been 10 years old, they would have been able to keep her separated from her mom. That, she said, is when the real fear set in. Then it was 42 hours of waiting in the airport holding rooms. Eventually they were put on a plane — then a minivan — to the facility in Texas. Maria Antonia said she didn’t really understand where they were going until they saw the center out the window. A page from Maria Antonia’s letter to reporter Mica Rosenberg: “They don’t give me my diet I am vegetarian, I don’t eat well, there is no good education and I miss my best friend julieta and my grandmother and my school I already want to get to my house. Me in dilei [Dilley] am not happy please get me out of here to colombia.” Obtained by ProPublica By the time I met them, they had been detained for nearly four months. I asked Maria Antonia what being stuck in Dilley was like. She told me she had fainted two times since she got there; she is vegetarian and said she ate mostly beans. She felt like she had nothing to do all day and she missed her school, echoing concerns of many of the other kids I spoke with over the course of my reporting. She said she had made some new friends inside Dilley, but it was hard. She and her mom had been detained for so long that new people she met would often leave when they were released or deported. Her mother, Maria Alejandra, had told me in long, vivid emails about some of more serious concerns about her and her daughter’s deteriorating mental and physical health during their prolonged detention. She said Maria Antonia would wake up in the middle of the night crying, fearful she would never leave detention or alternatively that she would be separated from her mom. Read More The Children of Dilley I asked the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which DHS oversees, about what Maria Alejandra and Maria Antonia told me. In an email, they said Maria Alejandra overstayed her tourist visa and had been previously arrested for theft, a charge that according to court documents was dismissed. DHS said that during her time in detention, Maria Antonia was seen by medical professionals twice and also had weekly check-ins with mental health professionals, “where she stated she was calm and well-nourished.” DHS said everyone held at the facility is “provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries” and “certified dieticians evaluate meals.” DHS also said “children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling” and no one is denied medical care. CoreCivic, which operates the facility, said it is subject to multiple layers of oversight and that health and safety are top priorities. Soon we all said goodbye. But I remained in touch with her mother and stepdad and attorneys following the case. They shared documentation about what happened to them and their legal pleas to be released.  I learned an immigration judge had granted them “voluntary departure” on Jan. 6, allowing Maria Alejandra to pay their own way back to Colombia, avoid having a formal deportation order on her record and continue her green card application from abroad. But it wasn’t until Feb. 6 that they were finally sent back to Colombia. A few days after they returned, her mother told me the first thing Maria Antonia wanted to do was throw out the government-issued sweatsuit she had been wearing for months. Then I received a video. It showed Maria Antonia, wearing pink leggings and a T-shirt with a teddy bear on it, running to embrace her teachers one by one outside her school. One of the teachers leads her by the hand into her classroom: “Look who I brought you!” the teacher says. Another young girl, Maria Antonia’s best friend, leaps out of her desk to wrap her arms around her. Another friend rushes to join the hug. She was finally home. The post How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention appeared first on ProPublica .

The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.  Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity.  At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.  White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona. The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.  Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions. The meetings came at a particularly crucial time. Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply . Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.” Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots. Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots.    Ed Martin posted a photo from his meeting with Thomas Albus in Washington, D.C., on social media. Via X Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported . Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake , a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.  Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction.   Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.  Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another. Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights . Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions. When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge . Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden , his family and his administration. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey. Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri. Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution. Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court. Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.  In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate.  Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December. Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings.  Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud.  One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi. The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case . As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.”  In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “ significant broader ethical concerns .” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “ no bearing on the outcome .” A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment. Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media.  Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?” The post What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia appeared first on ProPublica .

When county clerk Brianna Lennon got an email in November saying a newly expanded federal system had flagged 74 people on the county’s voter roll as potential noncitizens, she was taken aback. Lennon, who’d run elections in Boone County, Missouri, for seven years, had heard the tool might not be accurate. The flagged voters’ registration paperwork confirmed Lennon’s suspicions. The form for the second person on the list bore the initials of a member of her staff, who’d helped the man register — at his naturalization ceremony. It later turned out more than half the Boone County voters identified as noncitizens were actually citizens. The source of the bad data was a Department of Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. Once used mostly to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits, SAVE has undergone a dramatic expansion over the last year at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has long falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens lurk on state voter rolls, tainting American elections. At Trump’s direction, DHS has pooled confidential data from across the federal government to enable states to mass-verify voters’ citizenship status using SAVE. Many of the nation’s Republican secretaries of state have eagerly embraced the experiment, agreeing to upload all or part of their rolls. But an examination of SAVE’s rollout by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reveals that DHS rushed the revamped tool into use while it was still adding data and before it could discern voters’ most up-to-date citizenship information. As a result, SAVE has made persistent mistakes, particularly in assessing the status of people born outside the U.S., data gathered from local election administrators, interviews and emails obtained via public records requests show. Some of those people subsequently become U.S. citizens, a step that the system doesn’t always pick up. According to correspondence between state and federal officials , DHS has had to correct information provided to at least five states after SAVE misidentified some voters as noncitizens. Texas and Missouri were among the first states to try the augmented tool. In Missouri, state officials acted on SAVE’s findings before attempting to confirm them, directing county election administrators to make voters flagged as potential noncitizens temporarily unable to vote. But in hundreds of cases, the tool’s determinations were wrong, our review found. Lennon was among dozens of clerks statewide who raised alarms about the system’s errors. “It really does not help my confidence,” she said, “that the information we are trying to use to make really important decisions, like the determination of voter eligibility, is so inaccurate.” In Texas, news reports began emerging about voters being mistakenly flagged as noncitizens soon after state officials announced the results of running the state’s voter roll through SAVE in October. Our reporting showed these errors were more widespread than previously known, involving at least 87 voters across 29 counties. County election administrators suspect there may be more. Confusion took hold when the Texas secretary of state’s office sent counties lists of flagged voters and directed clerks to start demanding proof of citizenship and to remove people from the rolls if they didn’t respond. “I really find no merit in any of this,” said Bobby Gonzalez, the elections administrator in Duval County in South Texas, where SAVE flagged three voters, all of whom turned out to be citizens. Even counting people flagged in error, the first bulk searches using SAVE haven’t validated the president’s claims that voting by noncitizens is widespread. At least seven states with a total of about 35 million registered voters have publicly reported the results of running their voter rolls through the system. Those searches have identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens. This aligns with previous findings that noncitizens rarely register to vote . Brian Broderick leads the verification division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS branch that oversees SAVE. In an interview this month, he acknowledged the system can’t always find the most current citizenship information for people not born in the U.S. But he defended the tool, saying it was ultimately up to states to decide how to use SAVE data. “So we’re giving a tool to these folks to say, ‘Hey, if we can verify citizenship, great, you’re good. If we can’t, now it’s up to you to determine whether to let this person on your voter rolls,’” Broderick said. In Texas, Secretary of State Jane Nelson declined an interview request. Her spokesperson, Alicia Pierce, said the office hadn’t reviewed SAVE’s citizenship determination before sending lists to counties because it isn’t an investigative agency. In a statement, Pierce added that the use of SAVE was part of the office’s “constitutional and statutory duty to ensure that only eligible citizens participate in Texas elections.” A spokesperson for Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins called SAVE a valuable resource even though some people it flagged might later be confirmed as citizens. “No system is 100% accurate,” Hoskins said in an interview, “but we’re working to get it right.” Asked whether it was problematic that his office directed clerks to temporarily bar voters from casting ballots before verifying SAVE’s findings, Hoskins said that was a “good point.” While 27 states have agreed to use SAVE, others have hesitated, concerned not only about inaccuracies, but also about privacy and the data’s potential to be used in immigration enforcement. Indeed, speaking at a recent conference, Broderick said that when SAVE flags voters as noncitizens, they are also referred to DHS for possible criminal investigation. (It is a crime to falsely claim citizenship when registering to vote.) People who’ve been flagged by SAVE in error say it’s jarring to have to provide naturalization records to stay eligible to vote when they know they’ve done nothing wrong. Sofia Minotti was erroneously flagged as a potential noncitizen voter by a Department of Homeland Security tool. Shelby Tauber for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune Sofia Minotti, who lives north of Dallas in Denton County, was born in Argentina but became a U.S. citizen years ago. Nonetheless, she was one of 84 Denton County voters identified by SAVE as a potential noncitizen. She and 11 others have since provided proof of citizenship, giving the system an error rate in the county of at least 14%. The real rate is probably higher, a county official acknowledged, since some of those sent notices to prove their citizenship might not respond in time to meet the deadline. They’ll have to be reinstated to vote in the midterms later this year. Minotti, though still on the rolls, felt singled out unfairly. “I’m here legally, and everything I’ve done has been per the law,” she said. “I really have no idea why I had to prove it.” Election administrators in many states have long hungered for better access to federal information on citizenship status. States don’t typically require people to provide proof of citizenship when they sign up to vote, only to attest to it under penalty of perjury. Previous efforts to use state data to catch noncitizens on voter rolls have gone poorly. Texas officials had to abandon a 2019 push after it became clear their methodology misidentified thousands of citizens, many of them naturalized, as ineligible voters. Until recently, SAVE hadn’t been much of a resource. State and local election officials needed to have voters’ DHS-assigned immigration ID numbers — information not collected in the registration process — to verify their citizenship status. Plus, officials had to pay to conduct searches one by one, not in bulk. In March, Trump issued an executive order that required DHS to give states free access to federal citizenship data and partner with the Department of Government Efficiency to comb voter rolls. The order triggered a series of meetings at USCIS designed to comply with a 30-day deadline to remake SAVE, a document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and reviewed by ProPublica shows. The system’s main addition was confidential Social Security Administration data, which allowed states to search using full or partial Social Security numbers and incorporated information on millions of Americans who were not previously in Homeland Security databases. David Jennings, Broderick’s deputy at USCIS, had pressed his team to move quickly, he said on a June video call with members of former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, which has spread false claims about noncitizen voting. “We tested it and deployed it to our users in two weeks,” Jennings said on the call, which ProPublica obtained a recording of. “I think that’s remarkable. Kind of proud of it.” Jennings added that to get quick access to the Social Security data, which has been tightly guarded, USCIS partnered with DOGE. (In an unrelated matter, DOGE has since been accused of misusing Social Security data.) Jennings did not respond to questions from ProPublica and the Tribune. Perhaps because of its accelerated timetable, USCIS expanded the system before meeting legal requirements to inform the public about how the data would be collected, stored and used, according to voting rights organizations that sued . (UCSIS did not respond to a request for comment about this.) It also blew past concerns from voter advocacy groups about the accuracy of SSA’s citizenship data, which multiple audits and analyses have shown is often outdated or incomplete. This is particularly true for people not born in the U.S., who often get Social Security numbers well before they become citizens. According to emails obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune, SAVE first checks SSA’s citizenship information. If that shows a voter isn’t a citizen, DHS searches other databases, but it can be difficult to locate and match all the data the systems have on a person. This can lead to errors. Broderick said in the interview that Trump’s executive order dramatically accelerated the timetable for launching SAVE, getting agencies to cooperate and move quickly. But he insisted the work was done responsibly. “Do I think it was reckless? Do I think it wasn’t planned? Do I think it wasn’t tested? Absolutely not,” he said. By September, Texas had uploaded its entire list of more than 18 million registered voters into SAVE. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming put voter data into the system, too. They would soon start to unveil what SAVE had found. One of the first out of the gate was Texas. In late October, with early voting underway in state and local elections, Nelson, the secretary of state, announced SAVE had identified 2,724 potential noncitizens on the rolls. But as Nelson delegated the task of investigating those voters’ statuses to local election officials, confusion took hold. At a meeting, Nelson’s staff told county clerks’ offices to investigate flagged voters and then send notices to those for whom they were unable to confirm citizenship. In a follow-up email, Nelson’s staff told the clerks they should already have heard from someone in the office with more details. That set off a chain of messages on the local officials’ email group Travis County voter registration director Christopher Davis said he hadn’t been contacted and had just learned the county had 97 flagged voters. Marsha Barbee, in Wharton County near Houston, shared that she talked to a Nelson staffer who said she’d been directed not to tell local officials about their lists because they were in the middle of early voting. “They said we have enough on our plates and didn’t want us to worry right now,” Barbee wrote. In the absence of clear state guidance, clerks proceeded inconsistently. Some said they didn’t act on their lists, waiting for more direction. Others, unsure how to investigate flagged voters’ status, said they simply sent notices asking for proof of citizenship, though some opted not to remove nonresponsive voters from the rolls. “I give them many chances; I don’t just expire them right away,” Dee Wilcher, a clerk in East Texas’ Anderson County, said about flagged voters, adding that she wanted to avoid removing citizens from the rolls and looking “stupid.” Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said many clerks expressed frustration with the secretary of state’s lack of guidance and failure to help with investigations. When he shared clerks’ concerns, McGinn said Nelson’s staff didn’t respond, leading him to conclude that checking SAVE’s findings wasn’t an agency priority. He called the state’s use of SAVE “more political and appearance-based” than a practical way to ensure election integrity. One way to check SAVE’s findings would have been to get information from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship if residents register to vote when obtaining a driver’s license. The secretary of state’s office didn’t do this and didn’t direct counties to either. Several county officials said they hadn’t thought to ask DPS for information; those who did often found the agency had documentation showing some of the voters who SAVE identified as noncitizens were in fact citizens. In the Texas Panhandle, Potter County elections officials quickly confirmed through DPS that three of nine voters on their list had proof of citizenship on file. In neighboring Randall County, DPS helped officials verify that one in five had a U.S. passport, according to interviews with the local officials. In December, Travis County learned that 11 of the 97 voters flagged by SAVE had proven their citizenship to DPS. After getting the data, the county’s voter registrar, Celia Israel, said in an interview that she felt even more uncomfortable about moving forward with sending notices to voters, given SAVE’s errors. “It has proven to be inaccurate,” she said. “Why would I rely on it?” To be sure, SAVE also identified some people who weren’t eligible to vote, clerks said. Several came across instances in which voters marked on registration forms that they weren’t citizens, but were registered by election office staffers in error. Clerks also said voters have told them they’d misunderstood questions about eligibility when getting drivers’ licenses. (It’s not clear if any of those registered in error voted; overall, noncitizens rarely vote .)  ProPublica and the Tribune surveyed the 177 Texas counties that had voters flagged by SAVE, receiving data from 97 that had either checked DPS records or sent notices to voters to try to verify SAVE’s citizenship information. Overall, more than 5% of the voters SAVE identified as noncitizens proved to be citizens. In some smaller counties, most of those flagged were eligible to vote. That includes six of 11 in the Panhandle’s Moore County, and two of three in Erath County, near Dallas. But some of those who didn’t respond to notices also might be citizens. In Denton County, where Sofia Minotti lives, checks by elections administrator Frank Phillips’ staff delivered clear answers on the citizenship status of 26 of the 84 voters flagged by SAVE. Twelve, including Minotti, proved they were citizens. Fourteen more had marked on their registration forms that they weren’t and the blame rested with workers for registering them nonetheless. Phillips said he removed anyone who didn’t provide proof by the deadline from the rolls to comply with the secretary of state’s instructions, but he fears some were eligible voters. “What is bugging me is I think our voter rolls may be more accurate than this database,” Phillips said. “My gut feeling is more of these are citizens than not.” At least initially, Missouri took a more targeted approach to SAVE than Texas did. State officials used the system to search for information on a subset of about 6,000 voters they had reason to think might not be citizens, according to emails between federal and state officials . The state had results by October, but in early November, a USCIS official wrote to Missouri and four other states to say some people flagged by SAVE as noncitizens were actually citizens, emails obtained through public records requests show. “We have continued to refine our processes used to obtain and review the citizenship data available to us,” the official wrote, adding that one such improvement revealed the errors. The staffer attached amended search results, but Missouri officials withheld the attachment from its response to a public records request and did not respond to a question about how many corrections were made. Based on the updated data from USCIS, Missouri sent lists of flagged voters to county election administrators in November. ProPublica and the Tribune obtained these lists for seven of 10 most populous counties in the state, which show SAVE initially identified more than 1,200 people as noncitizens just in these areas. The Missouri secretary of state’s office told election administrators it would work to verify SAVE’s citizenship determinations. In the meantime, local officials were instructed to change the status of flagged voters, making them temporarily unable to vote. The lists were met with swift pushback from county election officials, who, like Lennon, soon spotted people they knew to be citizens and questioned the directive’s legality. On a group call in November, they traded examples, saying they recognized neighbors, colleagues and people they’d helped to register at naturalization ceremonies. In St. Louis, the Board of Election Commissioners didn’t alter the eligibility of anyone on its flagged voter list after being advised not to by its attorney. Rachael Dunn, a spokesperson for Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, said state law allows officials to change voters’ status during investigations into their eligibility — for example, if there are signs they’ve moved. The laws she cited don’t directly address investigations into citizenship status, however. In early December, some 70 clerks, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a letter to Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson saying there were better ways than SAVE to keep noncitizens off voter rolls. Weeks later, the state’s election integrity director, Nick La Strada, wrote USCIS to ask why a voter that SAVE had identified as a noncitizen in October had showed up in a more recent search as a citizen. A USCIS official replied that between the initial search and the follow-up, DHS had gotten access to passport data, which contains more up-to-date citizenship information on some people not born in the U.S. The USCIS staffer explained that some of the most accurate citizenship information — which is within DHS’ own records — still wasn’t searchable in SAVE because running that kind of search would require the voter’s DHS identifier, which can’t always be located. The staffer said they were working on improvements but those could take until March. “You don’t start with something at that scale until you work the bugs out, and that is not the case here,” Clinton Jenkins, president of the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities, said in an interview. Jenkins is also the clerk for Miller County in the Ozarks. In early January, in what was framed as a “SAVE review update,” the secretary of state’s office sent counties across Missouri revised lists with reduced numbers of voters identified as potential noncitizens. It instructed election administrators to move voters who’d been initially flagged in error by SAVE back to active status, restoring their eligibility to vote. Dunn, Hoskins’ spokesperson, didn’t specify what prompted these adjustments. Even the new lists may not be final, she acknowledged. Once the review is complete, the state has said it plans to send letters to those still on the lists, demanding proof of citizenship and giving recipients 90 days to respond. The addition of new data to SAVE makes it a more valuable resource, she maintained, “while also reinforcing the need for careful, layered review before any action is taken.” After the January revision, St. Louis County’s initial list of 691 potential noncitizens dropped to 133. Zuzana Kocsisova, who lives in St. Louis, was among those incorrectly flagged by SAVE on its first pass. Originally from Slovakia, she became a U.S. citizen in 2019. She showed ProPublica and the Tribune a copy of her naturalization certificate, which she keeps with a letter from Trump congratulating her for “becoming a citizen of this magnificent land.” When a reporter told her that SAVE had initially identified her as a potential noncitizen, she said she wasn’t surprised. She saw it as part of the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants. She was more frustrated than relieved to learn that she wasn’t on the smaller list of flagged voters sent in January. “Overall, it seems like this process has done more to worry people who can vote than to identify actual registered voters who don’t qualify,” she said. “It’s just a waste of resources. I don’t think it makes the elections any more safe.” In Boone County, where Lennon is the clerk, the count of flagged voters fell from 74 to 33 and the naturalized citizen who Lennon’s staff helped register was no longer on the list. Lennon said she and other county clerks would happily accept data that helps them correctly identify noncitizens on their voter rolls. But so far, SAVE hasn’t done that. And until it does, she said, she won’t purge voters purely because SAVE has flagged them. “This is not ready for prime time,” Lennon said. “And I’m not going to risk the security and the constitutional rights of my voters for bad data.” The post “Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes. appeared first on ProPublica .

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Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupied West Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swathes of the area for future development, according to a government decision on Sunday. It paves the way for the resumption of “settlement of land title” processes, which had been frozen in the West Bank since the Middle East war in 1967. It means that when Israel begins the land registration process for a certain area, anyone with a claim to...

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UK Health Security Agency urges parents in Enfield to get their children vaccinated as Easter holiday travels approach A big measles outbreak in north-east London is affecting unvaccinated children under the age of 10, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed. UKHSA previously reported 34 laboratory-confirmed measles cases among children who attend schools and nurseries in Enfield from 1 January to 9 February, with some requiring hospital treatment. Continue reading...

Emails suggest former prince leaked information about RBS bailout and held meetings suggested by convicted sex offender The UK’s top prosecutor has said that “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein. Thames Valley police said earlier this week that they were in discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations against the former prince of misconduct in public office. Continue reading...

Unclear how encounter between Britain’s shortest-serving PM and US president was initiated and how long it lasted After spending time and resources crisscrossing the Atlantic to cultivate the support of the Maga faithful, Liz Truss has finally got the prize she apparently craved: a photo with Donald Trump. Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister tweeted a photo on Sunday showing her in the company of the US president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Continue reading...