News from Multiple Perspectives

Students demand ICE agents protecting US delegation leave amid global outrage over Trump's brutal deportation push.

Thousands of people came to the town of Bani Walid for the funeral of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi after he was assassinated.

Handmade crafts are disappearing under mass production. What is lost when everything is made fast, cheap and at scale?

Spectators watch a pre-show ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) 2026-02-06T08:10:09Z MILAN (AP) — Featuring planned tributes to da Vinci and Dante, Puccini and Pausini, Armani and Fellini, pasta and vino, and other iconic tastes of Italian culture — plus an appearance by American diva Mariah Carey — an unprecedented four-site , dual-cauldron opening ceremony was getting the Milan Cortina Olympics officially started Friday. It didn’t exactly feel like a Winter Games as the festivities began at the main hub, Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, where the temperature was a tad below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) and the sky was a crisp, clear azure all afternoon. Not a trace of clouds, let alone snow. The Olympics were returning to a nation that last hosted the sports spectacle 20 years ago. This, though, is the most spread-out Winter Games in history, with competition venues dotting an area of about 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey. 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); }); Aside from San Siro, which opened a century ago and is home to Serie A soccer titans AC Milan and Inter Milan but is due to be razed and replaced in the next few years, athletes were slated to march in three other places, some carrying their country’s flag: Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains; Livigno in the Alps; Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento. That allowed up-in-the-mountains sports such as Alpine skiing , bobsled , curling and snowboarding to be represented in the Parade of Nations without requiring folks to make the several-hours-long trek to Milan, the country’s financial capital. For good measure, the Feb. 22 closing ceremony will be held in yet another locale, Verona, where Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was set. Another symbol of how far-flung things are this time: Instead of the usual one cauldron that is lit and burns throughout the Olympics, there will be two, both intended as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies. One is in Milan, 2½ miles (4 kilometers) from San Siro, and the other is going to be 250 miles (400 kilometers) away in Cortina. 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 people given the honor of lighting both was a closely guarded secret, as is usually the case at any Olympics. At the 2006 Turin Games, it was Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo. Other links to Italy’s heritage scheduled to be a part of Friday’s festivities: a performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli ; classically trained dancers from the academy of the famed Milan opera house, Teatro alla Scala ; a tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year at 91. A runway walk was to showcase outfits created by Armani in the colors of Italy’s flag: red, green and white. There were supposed to be references to opera and art, literature and architecture, appreciations for beauty and history and, above all, “La Dolce Vita” (loosely, Italian for “The Good Life” and the name of a 1960 film by Federico Fellini). Among other segments intended for the show produced by Olympic ceremony veteran Marco Balich were dancers reimagining 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova’s marble works; people wearing costumes representing composers Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi; and giant red, blue and yellow tubes of paint — the primary colors — floating above the stage before characters symbolizing Italian creativity and legacy paraded through the stadium. 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); }); There were going to be references to ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Venice Carnival and the country’s noted traditions in various areas such as cuisine and literature, such as “Pinocchio” and Dante’s “Inferno.” Balladeer Laura Pausini was selected to sing Italy’s national anthem in Milan, while a chorus was expected to join from Cortina. Another local touch: Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, of “White Lotus” fame, was to introduce a section that took viewers through a century of past Olympics, with examples of evolving equipment, sportswear and music. And actress and comedian Brenda Lodigiani was invited to demonstrate the popular Italian hand gestures often used to communicate in place of words. 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); }); Plenty had been kept under wraps by organizers who said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, seeking to represent the city-mountain dichotomy of the particularly unusual setup for these Olympics while also trying to appeal to a sense of unity at a time of global tensions. Another unknown: What sort of reception would greet U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he attended the ceremony in Milan? And what about the American athletes? When new International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry was asked this week what sort of greeting the U.S. delegation would get when they enter San Siro in the Parade of Nations, she replied: “I hope the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful.” ___ Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed to this report. ___ AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics HOWARD FENDRICH Fendrich is an Associated Press national writer based in Washington, D.C. He reports on tennis and other sports. twitter mailto 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Timothy Busfield appears at the 2020 ABC Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File) 2026-02-06T17:33:27Z SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico grand jury has indicted Timothy Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child. Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment Friday in a social media post. Authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Busfield over allegations of misconduct from when he was working as a director on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady.” Busfield has denied the allegations. He turned himself in to authorities and later was released from jail. Busfield is best known for appearances in “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething.” Larry Stein, an attorney for Busfield, did not comment on the sexual contact charge in the indictment but said the grand jury declined to endorse grooming charges sought by prosecutors. He said in a statement that a detention hearing already “exposed fatal weaknesses in the state’s evidence — gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks during a press conference on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray) 2026-02-06T17:44:09Z WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Oversight Committee on Friday requested records related to firms partially owned by the husband of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar , taking the extraordinary step of scrutinizing the spouse of a sitting House member. Rep. James Comer , a Kentucky Republican, released a letter to Timothy Mynett, a former Democratic political consultant who is married to Omar, requesting records related to a pair of companies that had a substantial jump in value between 2023 and 2024, according to financial disclosures filed by the congresswoman. Comer’s request marked a highly unusual move by the chair of a committee with a history of taking on politically-charged investigations, but almost always focused on government officials outside of Congress. The House Ethics Committee, which is comprised of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and tries to stay away from political fights, typically handles allegations involving lawmakers and their family members. 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); }); Yet since her 2018 election as one of the first Muslim women in the House, Omar has received nearly-nonstop attacks from the right. She has dismissed allegations around her finances as “misleading” and based on conspiracy theories. Omar’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Comer has also displayed a willingness to push the traditional parameters of the Oversight panel. In a separate investigation into Jeffrey Epstein He is enforcing subpoenas for depositions from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, marking the first time a former president will be forced to appear before Congress. In the letter to Mynett on Friday, Comer said, “There are serious public concerns about how your businesses increased so dramatically in value only a year after reporting very limited assets.” There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Omar, but President Donald Trump also said last month that the Department of Justice is looking into her finances. 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 response to the president, Omar said on social media that “your support is collapsing and you’re panicking,” adding that “Years of ‘investigations’ have found nothing.” The scrutiny of Omar’s finances comes from a required financial disclosure statement she filed in May last year. She reported then that two firms tied to her husband, a winery called eStCru and an investment firm called Rose Lake Capital, had risen in value by at least $5.9 million dollars. Lawmakers report assets within ranges of dollar figures, so it was not clear exactly how much the firms had risen in value or what ownership stake Mynett had in them. Omar has also pointed out that her husband’s reported income from the winery was between $5,000 and $15,000 and none from Rose Lake Capital. STEPHEN GROVES Groves covers Congress for The Associated Press. twitter mailto 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

The White House defended the post at first, calling to "stop the fake outrage", as members of both parties condemned the video.

Intelligence experts believe south-west France's proximity to defence and aerospace sites makes it a target for espionage.

Armed jihadists devastate a community that refused to convert to their hard-line interpretation of Islam.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that indirect nuclear talks with the U.S. in Oman were "a good start" and that there was a "consensus" that the negotiations would continue. "After a long period without dialogue, our viewpoints were conveyed, and our concerns were expressed. Our interests, the rights of the Iranian people, and all matters that needed to be stated were presented in a very positive atmosphere, and the other side’s views were also heard," Araghchi said . "It was a good start, but its continuation depends on consultations in our respective capitals and deciding on how to proceed," he added. IRAN'S KHAMENEI STAYS AWAY FROM TALKS AS JD VANCE SAYS DYNAMIC MAKES DIPLOMACY 'MUCH MORE COMPLICATED' Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi met with both Iranian and American officials on Friday, the Foreign Ministry of Oman said on X. The ministry said that al-Busaidi held separate meetings with Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. "The consultations focused on preparing the appropriate conditions for resuming diplomatic and technical negotiations, while emphasizing their importance, in light of the parties' determination to ensure their success in achieving sustainable security and stability," the Foreign Ministry of Oman said. Oman reportedly put out a public statement acknowledging the talks after journalists with The Associated Press saw Iranian and American officials separately visit the palace, the outlet reported. The AP said it was not immediately clear if talks were done for the day, but noted that the palace was empty after the convoys left. The Iranian representatives reportedly met with al-Busaidi first, and only after their convoy left the palace did another set of vehicles arrive, one of which had an American flag, according to the AP. The outlet said the SUV flying the American flag stayed at the palace for an hour and a half. TRUMP SAYS IRAN ALREADY HAS US TERMS AS MILITARY STRIKE CLOCK TICKS The talks were initially set to take place in Turkey, but were later moved, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio , who confirmed the change in venue on Wednesday. "We thought we had an established forum that had been agreed to in Turkey. It was put together by a number of partners who wanted to attend and be a part of it," Rubio said when taking questions from reporters on Wednesday. "I saw conflicting reports yesterday from the Iranian side saying that they had not agreed to that. So, that's still being worked through. At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage in, has always been prepared to engage with Iran." Iranian officials also reportedly tried to limit the talks to a bilateral U.S.-Iran format, excluding other Arab and regional countries, according to Axios. RUBIO CONFIRMS IRAN DEMANDED VENUE CHANGE FOR NUCLEAR TALKS Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have been high since Washington bombed Tehran's nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025. Things escalated further as the U.S. condemned Iran's treatment of anti-regime protesters, with President Donald Trump threatening to act if government actors used violence against demonstrators. Trump recently said in an interview with NBC News that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "should be very worried," though the president acknowledged that the two countries were "negotiating." When pressed about why he has not followed through on threats to take action if the regime used violence against protesters, Trump said that the U.S. "had their back" and that the "country's a mess right now because of us," referring to the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Trump also told NBC News that the U.S. had learned that Iran was attempting to build a new nuclear site in a different part of the country. The president said that he issued a threat that if Iran were to build a new nuclear facility, the U.S. would "do very bad things." It is not immediately clear whether there will be more discussions over the course of the weekend or if there are any plans for direct discussions between Iranian and American officials. The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Sen. Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., swiftly pulled the plug on a meeting with Lebanese Chief of Defense Gen. Rodolphe Haykal after the Lebanese official refused to confirm that the Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah movement is a terrorist organization. Graham posted to X a blunt message about his frustration with the state of Lebanon in particular and Mideast power politics in general. "I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Chief of Defense General Rodolphe Haykal. I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon." With that, I ended the meeting. They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the U.S. Marines," He continued, "They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 – for good reason. As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them. I am tired of the double speak in the Middle East. Too much is at stake." LAWMAKERS QUESTION WHETHER US MOVING FAST ENOUGH TO CAPITALIZE ON HEZBOLLAH'S WEAKENED STATE Haykal’s refusal to recognize that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization set off security alarm bells among leading experts on the movement. Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, told Fox News Digital that, ‘Gen. Haykal’s comment is only going to further concerns that the LAF sees Hezbollah as an actor with which it should deconflict, rather than disarm. The ceasefire agreement is clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed, in both the south and north of the country. In several instances to date, the LAF appears to have shared with Hezbollah targeting intelligence obtained from Israel through the US-led mechanism rather than acting on it." He added, "At a time when the LAF is seeking international aid, purportedly to disarm Hezbollah, failing to recognize the group as an adversary not only of Israel but of Lebanon as well undermines the case for further funding." Fox News Digital sent multiple press queries to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, D.C. ISRAEL WARNS HEZBOLLAH ‘PLAYING WITH FIRE,’ PRESSES LEBANON TO ACT ON WEAPONS PLEDGE Sarit Zehavi, a leading Israeli security expert on Hezbollah from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, told Fox News Digital that, "I was not surprised by what Haykal said. This is exactly the problem. Hezbollah is not designated as a terrorist organization in Lebanon. The Lebanese army... is not willing to clash with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not willing to voluntarily disarm. It will not happen as long as there is no clash." Zehavi claimed the Lebanese Armed Forces has "helped Hezbollah to conceal is military activity and weapons storages in south Lebanon." The U.S. brokered a ceasefire in Nov. 2024 between Hezbollah and Israel. In August, Lebanon’s government accepted an American plan to disarm the group by the end of 2025. That deadline does not seem to have been met. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Thomas Barrack, who also serves as envoy to Syria, said at a recent Milken Institute event that Lebanon is a "failed state." CARTEL CONNECTION: HEZBOLLAH AND IRAN EXPLOIT MADURO’S VENEZUELA FOR COCAINE CASH Barrack said, "The confessional system does not work. A Maronite president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shia speaker; 128 parliamentary seats split equally between Islam and Christians; everything is a deadlock." He said, " Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist by U.S. standards," and "it also happens to be a large political party within Lebanon that has blocking rights… This idea of saying you have to disarm Hezbollah … you’re not actually gonna do it militarily." Barrack said, "The U.S. is saying Hezbollah needs to be disarmed, Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist organization, it cannot exist. My personal opinion is you kill one terrorist, you create 10. That can’t be the answer." He urged the Lebanese political leadership to "run to Israel and make a deal...there is no other answer." Walid Phares, an American academic expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon who has advised U.S. presidential candidates, told Fox News Digital that "The disarming of Hezbollah is not just a U.S. and international request but also and most importantly a request by a majority of Lebanese since at least the Cedars Revolution in 2005, when 1.5 million Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis rallied against the Syrian occupation and the Khomeinist militia." He added, "While the Assad forces withdrew, Hezbollah remained armed. In May 2008, the radical Shia militia conducted an urban military coup against the pro-Western government and seized full power until the Israel-Iran war, known as the 12-day war of 2025. The latter was provoked by Hezbollah siding with Hamas during the Oct. 7 war." Fox News Digital reported in November that the Trump administration ramped up pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

A Russian military intelligence figure was shot in the nation's capital city on Friday, according to The Associated Press. Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was shot multiple times by an unidentified attacker at an apartment building and was hospitalized, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko noted in a statement, according to the AP. President Vladimir Putin was informed about the attack, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who added that law enforcement agencies need to step up protection of senior military officers during the conflict in Ukraine. ZELENSKYY REVEALS 55,000 UKRAINIAN DEATH TOLL AS PEACE TALKS CONTINUE The AP reported that the business daily Kommersant indicated that the shooter posed as a delivery person, shooting Alekseyev twice in the stairway of his apartment building, injuring him in the foot and arm. The Russian figure attempted to wrest the weapon away and was shot again in the chest before the perpetrator fled, the report noted, according to the AP. President Donald Trump's administration has been striving to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. The warring nations agreed to a prisoner swap this week, according to readouts posted on X by U.S. special presidential envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff and Ukraine's national security and defense council minister Rustem Umerov. TRUMP CALLS FOR NUCLEAR EXPERTS TO WORK ON ‘NEW, IMPROVED, AND MODERNIZED TREATY’ "Over February 4 and 5, delegations from the United States, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation met for the second trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi to advance efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The discussions were constructive and focused on how to create the conditions for a durable peace," the readouts state. US SPECIAL ENVOY WITKOFF ANNOUNCES US, UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN DELEGATIONS AGREE TO PRISONER SWAP "The delegations reached agreement whereby the Russian Federation and Ukraine will each release 157 Prisoners of War. This is the first exchange in the last five months," the readouts note. The Associated Press contributed to this report

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The ruling by China’s highest court followed a recent meeting between China and Canada’s top leaders led to a thaw in the two countries’ relations.

A library in rural Alaska needed help providing free Wi-Fi and getting kids to read. A children’s museum in Washington wanted to expand its Little Science Lab. And a World War I museum in Missouri had a raft of historic documents it needed to digitize. They received funding from a little-known federal agency before the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to dismantle it last year. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is now accepting applications for its 2026 grant cycle. But this time, it has unusually specific criteria. In cover letters accompanying the applications, the institute said it “particularly welcomes” projects that align with President Donald Trump’s vision for America. These would include those that foster an appreciation for the country “through uplifting and positive narratives,” the agency writes, citing an executive order that attacks the Smithsonian Institution for its “divisive, race-centered ideology.” (Trump has said the museum focused too much on “how bad slavery was.” ) The agency also points to an executive order calling for the end of “ the anti-Christian weaponization of government ” and one titled Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again . The solicitation marks a stark departure for the agency, whose guidelines were previously apolitical and focused on merit. Former agency leaders from both political parties, as well as those of library, historical and museum associations, expressed concern that funded projects could encourage a more constrained or distorted view of American history. Some also feared that by accepting grants, institutions would open themselves up to scrutiny and control, like the administration’s wide-ranging audit of Smithsonian exhibits “ to assess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals .” The new guidelines are “chilling,” said Giovanna Urist, who served as a senior program officer at the agency from 2021 to 2023. “I think that we just need to look at what’s happening with the Smithsonian to know that the administration has a very specific goal in mind when it comes to controlling the voice of organizations and museums across the country.” An agency spokesperson told ProPublica it is not unusual for the institute to publish directors’ letters with grant applications, and that this one informs readers “about this Administration’s thematic emphases in the semi-quincentennial year.” He did not comment on criticisms that those letters insert political themes into a historically nonpartisan program. “Under President Trump’s leadership, IMLS is working to revitalize our cultural institutions, urging less traditional applicants to consider working with us, and to promote civic pride and a deep sense of belonging among all Americans,” he said, adding that any institution that “meets programmatic requirements and goals” outlined in the funding opportunity “will receive all due consideration and undergo peer review.” The spokesperson did not say how alignment with Trump’s executive orders would be weighed in the selection process or address concerns about the administration’s intrusion into funded institutions. Established in 1996, the institute is the only dedicated source of federal support for libraries and one of the primary federal funders of museums and archives. Its long-running grant programs promote community engagement and public access to information, while bolstering institutions’ ability to care for collections and prepare for disasters. One grant, named after former first lady Laura Bush , helps recruit and train library professionals. Last March, Trump attempted to eliminate the agency through an executive order and fired director Cyndee Landrum, a career library professional. Attorneys general from 21 states and the American Library Association sued the Trump administration to block it from dismantling the agency; the courts have halted the efforts for now. To head the agency, the administration appointed Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith E. Sonderling, who does not appear to have prior professional experience in museums or libraries. (An institute spokesperson didn’t comment on concerns ProPublica passed along about this.) In a press release announcing his appointment as acting director, Sonderling said, “We will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.” Ten days later, he put nearly all of the agency’s 75 employees on administrative leave, fired the board and rescinded some previously awarded grants. The grants were reinstated under court order in December, and the agency is now accepting applications for 13 grants whose awards range from $5,000 to $1 million. According to Grants.gov , the agency now expects to award nearly 600 grants totaling more than $78 million. ProPublica spoke with directors who ran the agency under every previous presidential administration dating back to Barack Obama’s. Though each era brought different priorities, they said, those changes were implemented with input from the field — not by encouraging applicants to align their work with a president’s worldview. With the new guidelines, they said, the administration is signaling a preference for certain types of projects and narratives. Crosby Kemper III, a lifelong conservative Republican appointed by Trump to lead the agency in 2019, stayed on into President Joe Biden’s term. While he was not a fan of the former president’s emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion and feels that the library and museum fields needed a course correction from their natural lean to the left, he believes that what is coming out of the current Trump administration is not helpful. “All these Trump executive orders — and I mean all of them — are just extensions of his own animus towards anybody who disagrees with him and his outsized ego,” said Kemper, who called the orders “nonsense” and the grant guidelines “horrific.” “It’s clear the administration wants a whitewashed story, if you’ll pardon the pun there. And that’s wrong.” Leaders of the American Historical Association, the American Library Association and the American Alliance of Museums warned that changes to the agency’s grant language and recent funding actions have led to uncertainty across the field. Among questions raised: Would the government revoke grants it had already awarded, as it did last year? Would accepting the money open up institutions to broader investigations, like the 52 universities scrutinized over their DEI practices ? The institute spokesperson did not comment on either of those questions. Sarah Weicksel, the American Historical Association’s executive director, said institutions are even worried about how they would be perceived if they took the funds. “They’re wondering, is accepting the grant a sign that they accept the executive orders that have been laid out here?” Questions also remain about whether enough staff is left to process the applications properly. The agency’s $112 million budget for this year is roughly a third of the funding it has received in recent years. The agency did not answer a question about its current staffing, but in its most recent Congressional Budget Justification document, it requested support for 13 full-time employees . Former agency officials said that number is low, but that they trusted the remaining staffers to choose quality projects and, in the words of Kemper, “do the right thing.” But staffers are only part of the process. Typically, each grant application is reviewed by volunteer library and museum experts. Susan Hildreth, who led the agency from 2011 to 2015, questions the lack of information about the current process on the agency’s website . “I couldn’t find it anywhere in the documentation,” she said. The institute spokesperson said the grant process remains the same as previous years. Opinion polls consistently find that libraries and museums are among the most trusted public institutions in the country by Americans across the political spectrum, and Urist said they are trusted because of their independence. “When the federal government puts its thumb on that scale, it threatens the trustworthiness of these community anchors.” Weicksel said it’s important for the public to know how the administration is aiming to shape institutions essential to the nation’s culture and ability to understand itself and its past. Patty Gerstenblith, distinguished research professor of Law at DePaul University, agreed, saying that the administration’s actions raise serious First Amendment concerns. “Certainly at a minimum,” Gerstenblith said, “people should know that the government is using its funding as a way of essentially coercing a different presentation of American history.” The post Grant Guidelines for Libraries and Museums Take “Chilling” Political Turn Under Trump appeared first on ProPublica .

Senators introduced legislation on Thursday that would require prescription drug labels to identify where the medication was made, adding momentum to a yearslong campaign to bring more transparency to the often elusive generic drug industry. At a hearing last week, members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging criticized manufacturers for routinely concealing the locations of their drugmaking plants as well as the suppliers that provide key ingredients. ProPublica described this lack of transparency — and how it was enabled by the Food and Drug Administration — in a series of stories that found the agency had quietly allowed troubled foreign drugmakers to continue selling generic medication to unsuspecting Americans. The Clear Labels Act , introduced by committee chair Rick Scott, R-Fla., and ranking member Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is meant to help patients, doctors and pharmacists know more about the drugs they use and prescribe. Current labels often list only a distributor or repackager of a medication and sometimes provide no information at all. The proposal calls for labels to disclose the original manufacturer as well as the suppliers that produced their key ingredients. Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., also signed on to the proposed legislation. “Every American deserves honesty and transparency about what they are putting into their bodies,” Scott said. “It is wholly irresponsible that we’re living in the dark when it comes to where our medicines are made.” ProPublica had to file public records requests and sue the FDA in federal court to obtain information about where generic drugs are made and whether government inspectors had flagged those factories for safety or quality concerns. ProPublica ultimately created a first-of-its-kind tool that empowers consumers to find the information themselves. Ninety percent of the prescriptions in the United States are for generics, many of them manufactured overseas. For patients and their doctors, identifying where medication was made and the safety records of those factories had been nearly impossible until now. Rx Inspector , the tool ProPublica introduced late last year, includes factory location information and inspection histories when available for nearly 40,000 generic drug products. Doctors, patients and researchers say they are already using it to better understand where medication comes from and to find more information when a generic causes unexplained health problems. The Clear Labels Act would require manufacturing location information on packaging for brand-name drugs as well as generics. Ohio State University professor John Gray, who testified at the hearing, suggested that packaging could include a QR code linking to the data on a website. Gray is working to assign quality scores to specific versions of generic drugs and said the code would allow patients and doctors to easily find those scores while researching medication and their manufacturers. “Low-quality drugs have human consequences,” Gray said. Gray said he is using Rx Inspector to fuel his work, which is funded by the Department of Defense. The tool, he said, “allows you to find out where … your drug is made easily.” The push for more transparency comes on the heels of a bipartisan investigative report that Scott and Gillibrand released last year, calling for sweeping changes in the FDA’s oversight of the generic drug industry. Among other things, the senators asked the FDA to alert hospitals and other group purchasers when foreign drugmakers with serious safety and quality failures are given a special pass to send their products to the United States. Since 2013, ProPublica found, the FDA allowed more than 20 troubled overseas factories , mostly in India, to continue to send certain medications to the U.S. even after those facilities were banned because of concerns about contamination and other breaches. The agency didn’t actively track whether the imported drugs were harming users and kept the practice largely hidden from the public and Congress. The lawmakers also called on the FDA to conduct more drug testing. The agency doesn’t routinely assess generic drugs once they are on the market, even if they come from factories with quality and safety violations. ProPublica recently tested several versions of three of the most widely prescribed generics in the United States and found that two had irregularities that could risk the health of consumers. At the hearing last week, the committee’s fourth on generic drugs in recent months, lawmakers and witnesses said knowing more about where drugs are made is an essential first step to improving drug quality. For years, pharmacists and members of Congress have pushed for more transparency to help patients and doctors make informed decisions about health care. “Everyone deserves to know where their medications are coming from,” said University of Utah Hospital pharmacist Erin Fox, who has advocated for more information. Fox and others also said they support a drug-quality rating system, which would allow hospitals and government agencies to assess generic drugs based on quality and not just price. “You never go to the supermarket and buy the lowest price, most bruised fruit or go on Amazon and buy the one-star product because it’s cheaper,” said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine and health policy at Stanford University. “And yet that’s the generic drug market, and that’s 90% of the prescriptions that we write as physicians. And that’s just not tolerable.” A spokesperson for the trade group for brand-name drugmakers said in a statement to ProPublica that the industry would “welcome conversations about how to strengthen the biopharmaceutical supply chain.” The generic drug lobbying group said that additional labeling requirements would impose “significant costs in exchange for limited returns,” and that drug manufacturers already disclose country of origin information under U.S. Customs and Border Protection rules. The post The Clear Labels Act Would Change What You Know About Your Prescription Medication appeared first on ProPublica .

Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting? “Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage. Chief Mike Witz shook his head. “No, because it’s a federal shooting,” he said. “You’re not going to investigate a federal officer.” His officers didn’t investigate. In their report, they didn’t even note the names of the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the scene of Silverio Villegas González’s death. Instead, they deferred to the FBI. Local law enforcement officials also did not investigate when a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a U.S. citizen in her car in Chicago less than a month later. Or when an ICE agent in Phoenix shot a Honduran man during a traffic stop later that month. In fact, local police did not open investigations into six of the 12 shootings by on-duty federal agents that have led to the deaths or injuries of citizens and immigrants since September, a ProPublica analysis found. In three other shooting cases, state or local police said they have opened inquiries, which they called a routine practice in those jurisdictions. And in Minnesota, where ICE and Border Patrol shot and killed two U.S. citizens and injured a Venezuelan man last month, state police have tried to conduct independent investigations only to be thwarted by the Trump administration, which has gone so far as to block officers from a scene, even when they had a judicial warrant. In almost every instance, President Donald Trump’s administration blamed the injured and dead for the shooting within hours of the incident, raising questions about whether federal officials can fairly and objectively investigate their own. Legal experts and advocates for immigrants say this apparent lack of accountability demands that local authorities step up and exercise their power to investigate and prosecute federal agents who break state laws — from battery to murder. “Local police and the state have gotten a free pass,” said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the co-founder and director of its Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “Residents have every right and should be demanding that, ‘Hey, state authorities, police, local police: Protect us. Arrest people who kill us, who batter us, who point guns at us and threaten and assault us without legal cause to do so.’” Body camera footage shows then-Franklin Park Police Chief Mike Witz responding to his officers’ questions about whether they would investigate the shooting of a Mexican immigrant by federal agents. Obtained by ProPublica It’s usually the opposite scenario: federal authorities coming in to investigate a troubled police department. But local authorities have investigated and charged federal agents in the past . It’s just rare and complicated. The federal supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution bars local interference with federal law enforcement officers when they act reasonably and within the scope of their duties. But given the aggressive tactics employed by immigration agents under the Trump administration, Futterman and other legal experts said local police and prosecutors are morally obligated to at least try to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable. “We’re in an environment right now where ICE officers are blatantly and egregiously violating the Constitution and the law,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The federal government has made it very clear that they are not going to do anything to provide any sort of accountability backstop to its officers. Unfortunately, because Congress is not taking any steps to rein ICE officers in, there really is no option other than states protecting their constituents’ rights.”  In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that agents are “trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers.” All use-of-force incidents are properly reported and reviewed by an appropriate law enforcement agency, the spokesperson said. Immigration agents at the border have long been criticized for use of deadly force and lack of rigorous investigations afterward. But now the same militarized force is on display in major American cities far from the border, where residents are not used to their presence.  The shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month — and the federal government’s resistance to a routine local investigation — has prompted Democratic and some Republican officials across the country to call for more accountability. Last week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order directing police officers to document alleged illegal activity by federal immigration agents and refer any evidence of felonies to prosecutors.  California’s governor and attorney general issued a reminder to local police of their rights to investigate federal agents. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes launched a website asking residents to submit evidence of federal agents’ misconduct. And prosecutors from nine jurisdictions around the country announced a new coalition to provide mutual support to law enforcement authorities bringing charges against federal officers. In Minneapolis, prosecutors say they’re working with state police to investigate in spite of resistance from federal officials. So far, DHS officials have refused to provide evidence or even the names of the agents involved in the January shootings . Prosecutors went so far as to obtain an emergency order to require that federal agencies preserve evidence in the Pretti case. A judge dropped the temporary restraining order on Monday, following assurances from the federal government that it would maintain investigative materials.  The prosecutors said they believe they can still gather enough evidence to make an informed decision about whether to charge the federal agents. “We get cases submitted to us every day that don’t have all the evidence we would like,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in an interview. “We would certainly like the gun. We would like the shell casings, that kind of thing. But it’s also not a mystery as to why these people died.” Even after getting a judicial warrant, investigators from the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were turned away by federal agents from the Minneapolis intersection where Pretti, 37, was shot and killed. Federal officials also excluded the BCA from the investigation into the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed in her car two weeks before Pretti.  BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said he’d never seen his officers physically stopped from doing their job by another law enforcement agency. Across the country, he said, state agencies like the BCA routinely investigate deadly force incidents like this one. “We’re in uncharted territory here,” he said. Within hours of each killing, Trump officials publicly labeled the dead “domestic terrorists.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a gun when he approached the officers, while the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino claimed Pretti was planning a “massacre.”  Video footage contradicted the administration’s version of events. Pretti, for instance, never unholstered his gun, which he was legally allowed to carry.   Early last week, Trump sent Bovino and Border Patrol agents away from Minneapolis, and on Wednesday DHS officials said they would pull another 700 agents out of the state — signs  the administration may be changing its approach in response to rising criticism. The FBI is now investigating the Pretti shooting, and the Justice Department announced Friday that it had opened a civil rights investigation.  A DOJ spokesperson did not answer questions for this story but referred reporters to a press conference last weekend in which Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said DHS is following its normal investigative protocols in the Pretti shooting.  Meanwhile, the Justice Department has said it has no plans to investigate Good’s shooting.  “We don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody putting his life in danger,” Blanche told Fox News. Residents set up a memorial to Silverio Villegas González, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Franklin Park, Illinois, in September. Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Redux Police in Franklin Park and Chicago have not explained why they didn’t open their own investigations into the two shootings last fall. In the Franklin Park case, the decision to let the FBI alone investigate the killing of Villegas was made within minutes of the shooting, according to dispatch records.  Villegas, a 38-year-old restaurant cook, was shot as he tried to drive away from ICE agents who had pulled him over. As in Minneapolis, the Trump administration’s narrative of what happened did not match the evidence. DHS claimed that Villegas dragged one of the agents, causing serious injuries. The agent fired “because he feared for his life,” officials said. Police body camera footage released after the shooting showed the agent downplaying his injury as “nothing major.” At the scene, Franklin Park police officers directed traffic and interviewed a witness, the footage shows. At one point, one officer told his colleague that the police department was “just securing until they get here,” referring to the FBI. Witz, who was then the police chief but has since retired, could not be reached for comment; the current chief did not respond to interview requests. A similar situation unfolded in Chicago on Oct. 4 after a Border Patrol agent fired into the vehicle of a woman who federal officials claimed “ambushed” them. Marimar Martinez was charged with assaulting federal agents, though the charges were later dropped.  At the time, the Chicago Police Department said officers had responded to a call about a shooting “to document the incident” and to “maintain safety and traffic control.” When asked last week why it didn’t open an independent inquiry, the department directed ProPublica to its October statement, which made clear the police were “not involved in the incident or its investigation” and directed questions to federal authorities.  As the events in Minneapolis continued to generate criticism nationwide, Chicago’s mayor unveiled his executive order that directed officers to investigate federal immigration agents who break the law and to refer them for criminal prosecution. In a statement, the mayor’s office said the initiative was a response to “the absence of legal repercussions in the wake of the shooting of Marimar Martinez in Chicago and the killings of Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park and Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.” Legal experts said they were not aware of recent examples of Illinois law enforcement agencies investigating an on-duty federal agent, though last month a suburban police department obtained misdemeanor charges against an off-duty ICE agent accused of attacking an activist who was filming him while the agent was pumping gas.  Illinois State Police officials said they would investigate federal agents who were accused of breaking the law if they are asked to do so. Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called on a state accountability commission to examine the roles of key Trump officials in the escalation of aggressive tactics during a monthslong immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago and its suburbs late last year. Pritzker had previously established the commission to​ gather videos and testimonies about federal agents’ conduct, and to create a public record of what happened. The commission lacks subpoena power but can refer information about potential violations of state law to law enforcement agencies or prosecutors. “Just imagine if the agents who shot Mr. Villegas González back on Sept. 12 had been publicly disciplined,” Rubén Castillo, a retired federal judge who chairs the commission, said at a hearing Friday. “Maybe, just maybe, the Minnesota shootings would not have occurred, and two people would be alive who are now dead.” He added: “We will have conversations with those in local law enforcement to suggest prosecutions that should be occurring even as we speak.” Police and federal law enforcement gathered at the Minneapolis intersection where Renee Good was shot and killed by federal agents in January. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times/Redux In California, neither the Los Angeles nor Ontario police departments investigated after two men were shot by federal immigration agents in separate October incidents and then accused of assaulting federal officers — despite video evidence and victim statements that conflicted with the accounts officials provided. A federal judge dismissed the case against one man, a Mexican immigrant and popular TikTokker; the other, a U.S. citizen, pleaded not guilty and has a trial scheduled for April. Police in Phoenix also said they are not investigating the shooting of a man who federal officials say fled immigration agents last October, leaving the case to the FBI and ICE. And local police in Portland, Oregon, are not investigating an incident where federal agents shot at a Venezuelan man who had allegedly hit an unoccupied Border Patrol vehicle with his car in early January, injuring him and his passenger. The man was later charged with assaulting an officer. Unlike in some of the other cases, the Oregon attorney general’s office has opened its own investigation. In contrast, police in Pima County, Arizona, and Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and the Texas Rangers have all said they opened investigations into recent shootings involving federal immigration officers. Asking local officials to investigate their federal counterparts does not come without challenges. Police officers and prosecutors are wary of being seen as interfering with federal law enforcement operations. They may be reluctant to damage their already complicated relationships with agencies with whom they sometimes partner.  Then there’s the worry about the political consequences, including the threat of losing federal funding, a dynamic that’s particularly acute under the Trump administration. “This particular federal government has lobbed all kinds of threats and acted on threats against local authorities and state authorities for failure to cooperate or not do what they want them to do,” said Futterman, the University of Chicago law professor. “It’s a reason in itself not to bite a hand that feeds you.” Even when local officials open their own investigations into federal agents, there’s no guarantee they can bring the cases to court. Federal agents can claim immunity in response to state charges, legal experts said, and can move their cases to federal court. That immunity stems from a Supreme Court ruling more than a century ago. During the Civil Rights Movement, that immunity was used when the federal government wanted to protect its law enforcement officers tasked with enforcing then-controversial efforts like desegregation in hostile states.  Now local officials face the opposite challenge: protecting their constituents’ constitutional rights from what they believe is excessive force at the hands of federal officers.  Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia, would be the first to admit that nothing about prosecuting federal agents is easy. During the first Trump administration, Descano brought state manslaughter charges against two U.S. Park Police officers who shot and killed a Virginia man. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2021 and said the officers were entitled to immunity because their actions were necessary and proper. Still, Descano, who is part of the coalition of prosecutors aiming to hold federal law enforcement accountable, said he believed he and others have a responsibility to do so.  “If they are not willing to take these actions,” he said, “then they are cowards and they are not worthy of their positions.” The post “You’re Not Going to Investigate a Federal Officer” appeared first on ProPublica .

West Wing and Field of Dreams actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child, a New Mexico prosecutor announced on Friday. The allegations are tied to Busfield’s work as a director on the set of the television series The Cleaning Lady in recent years. Busfield has denied the allegations, initially filed in court by police, and a defence lawyer on Friday said he would “fight these charges at every stage”. Bernalillo County District...

The United States accused Beijing on Friday of conducting a secret nuclear test in 2020 ‌as it called for a new, broader arms control treaty that would bring in China as well as Russia. The accusations at a global disarmament conference highlighted serious tension between Washington and Beijing at a pivotal moment in nuclear ‍arms control, a day after the treaty limiting US and Russian missile and warhead deployments expired. “I can reveal that the US government is aware that China has conducted...

The US has arrested a person suspected of ‍playing a central role in the 2012 attack on its consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday. Bondi said Zubayar al-Bakoush has been ⁠extradited to the United States and will face murder, arson and terrorism-related charges. Four US personnel were killed in the September 11, 2012, incident, which was initially thought to be a spontaneous reaction to protests ‍but was later identified as a deliberate attack carried out by...

Material did not have legally obligatory imprint clarifying that it was funded and distributed by political party Reform UK will face a police investigation in Gorton and Denton after admitting it sent out letters from a “concerned neighbour” which did not state they had been funded and distributed by the party. Greater Manchester police confirmed it had received a report about the breach of electoral law and said it would investigate. The Electoral Commission said the omission was a matter for the police, stressing that failing “to include an imprint in candidate election material is an offence”. Continue reading...

Progressive Analilia Mejia maintains slim lead after votes seemed to be swinging for Tom Malinowski US politics live – latest updates The outcome of a special Democratic primary to fill a US House of Representatives seat representing northern New Jersey was on a knife-edge on Friday, after a progressive challenger took a surprise lead over a former Democratic congressman who initially appeared to have won the nomination. The election held on Thursday in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district was prompted by Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s resignation last year after she was elected governor. Eleven Democrats vied to replace her, and on Thursday evening, Tom Malinowski, who represented a neighboring district in the House from 2019 through 2022, took an early lead. Continue reading...

Properties in London and Wiltshire targeted by officers investigating alleged leaks to late child sex offender Police are searching two properties connected to Peter Mandelson as part of an investigation into claims that he passed market-sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein. A Metropolitan police statement, which did not name Mandelson, said searches were taking place in Camden, north London, and Wiltshire. Mandelson has been living in a rented property in Wiltshire since being sacked as ambassador to the US over his links to the late convicted child sex offender. Continue reading...