pelespirit

Between when President Donald Trump returned to office in January and June 10, 1,355 people in Colorado have faced administrative arrest by federal immigration authorities, according to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that was obtained by a team at the University of California, Berkeley. That’s a nearly 300% increase from the same period in 2024, when 342 people were arrested in the state, according to The Denver Post’s analysis of the data.

The arrests in Colorado this year amount to more than 9 per day, on average, since Jan. 20.

A majority of those arrested in Colorado had not been convicted of a crime, according to the data. About 40% were listed as having a prior criminal conviction and 30% had charges pending. The remaining 30% were listed only as "other immigration violator."

That proportion has grown: During Trump's first 70 days in office, about 44% of arrestees had been convicted of a crime. Over the next 70 days, that number dropped to 36%.

No information was provided about the convictions, charges or immigration violations.

Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke has been indicted on a federal criminal conspiracy charge related to his alleged role in rigging the bidding to develop, manage and operate the University of Texas’ basketball arena in Austin.

Leiweke, 68, is accused in the indictment of conspiring with another would-be bidder on the $338 million Moody Center arena project to induce that second company to drop out of the competition with Oak View Group in exchange for receiving lucrative sub-contracts at the arena.

The calls from Alligator Alcatraz’s first detainees brought distressing news: Toilets that didn’t flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. A hospital visit. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys.

The stories, relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in Florida’s makeshift detention center for migrants in the Everglades, offer the first snapshots of the conditions inside the newly opened facility, which began accepting detainees on July 2. They reveal detainees who are frightened not just about being deported, but also about how they are being treated by the government, which is saying little about what is taking place inside.

“Why would we treat a human like that?” a woman whose Venezuelan husband is housed in Alligator Alcatraz told the Miami Herald. “They come here for a better life. I don’t understand. We are supposed to be the greatest nation under God, but we forget that we’re under God.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had blocked President Trump's executive order requiring government agencies to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

The order was unsigned. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed to the court by President Biden, dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a fellow liberal, concurred with the court's decision. The order did not make clear how the other justices voted, but they did say, "we express no view on the legality of any" plans to shrink the federal workforce, and it left open the possibility that the issue could return to the Supreme Court.

North Dakota’s congressional delegation emphasized the elimination of tax credits for solar and wind projects as part of the federal reconciliation package will be a huge win for coal, gas and oil producers.

He also said the country has been subsidizing wind and solar energy sources for about 35 years and those sources are still not able to “stand on its own merit.”

“We’ve actually diminished the reliability of our grid by putting intermittent … electricity on that grid,” Cramer said. “You have to have generation and generation that is available 15% of the time isn’t going to build you many server farms.”

The move upends a 70-year-old interpretation of the U.S. tax code, whose Johnson Amendment has barred certain non-profit groups, including churches, from endorsing political candidates without putting their tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

President Donald Trump has long called for Johnson Amendment to be repealed.

“Communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the IRS said in the joint filing Monday with the National Religious Broadcasters group in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

TSA is unveiling new procedures to allow passengers to keep their shoes on at standard airport screening checkpoints, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

The big change hasn’t been officially announced.

“TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture. Any potential updates to our security process will be issued through official channels,” the agency told the Journal in a statement.

Federal officers and National Guard troops fanned out around a mostly empty Los Angeles park in a largely immigrant neighborhood on foot, horseback and military vehicles on Monday for about an hour before abruptly leaving, an operation that local officials said seemed designed to sow fear.

The Department of Homeland Security wouldn't say whether anyone had been arrested during the brief operation at MacArthur Park. Federal officials did not respond to requests for comment about why the park was targeted or why the raid ended abruptly.

About 90 members of the California National Guard were present to protect immigration officers, defense officials said.

In his all-out war on illegal immigration, President Donald Trump has branded immigrants as “criminals,” “invaders” and “predators,” as his administration targets millions of Haitians, Latin Americans, gang members and foreign college students for deportation.

Now, the president has directed the Justice Department to bolster its resources in a major crackdown on naturalized citizens suspected of unlawfully obtaining their U.S. citizenship.

According to a recent memo, the department plans to focus not only on individuals who may have lied about a crime or having done something illegal during the naturalization process. But authorities also plan to focus on others who may have committed a crime after becoming citizens — a generally untested legal frontier.

The video released by DOJ, from inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, begins at 7:30 p.m. on August 9, 2019 and ends at 6:40 a.m. on August 10. Epstein was found dead in his cell on August 10 around 6:30 a.m. The missing minute from the video occurs on the night of August 9 where the tape seems to jump from 11:58:58 p.m. to 12:00:00 a.m.

The full video released by DOJ is almost 11 hours long, but we’ve clipped the missing portion below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoG2NXW5IxU

Many people on social media have questioned why the doors in the video are different from the photos aired in 2019 by 60 Minutes that show police tape covering Epstein’s cell. A door with a window is seen, whereas the visible doors in the video that was released by the DOJ don’t feature any windows.

It’s also notable that DOJ released two versions of the video. The first is apparently untouched, though you can’t make out Epstein in either. The second was altered slightly by the FBI. As the DOJ put it in a letter published online: “During this review, the FBI enhanced the relevant footage by increasing its contrast, balancing the color, and improving its sharpness for greater clarity and viewability.” The two clips embedded above are from the unaltered video. The altered video is available on the DOJ website.

The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the U.S. to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting public statements by officials in both countries.

The administration in March agreed to pay $6 million for El Salvador to house 300 migrants. The deal sparked immediate controversy when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove men it has accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The revelation was contained in court filings Monday by lawyers for more than 100 migrants who are seeking to challenge their deportations to El Salvador's mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.

The case is among several challenging President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

• Land for Housing: A measure to sell public land to build affordable housing was cut from Trump’s policy megabill, but key officials and interests say they’ll continue pursuing the idea.
• Nevada’s Experience: While the idea has support from both liberals and conservatives, the biggest existing attempt to do so, in Nevada, has so far created little affordable housing.