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    Ghislaine Maxwell interviewed again by deputy US attorney general

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    The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, held a second in-person meeting on Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Blanche had confirmed the two met behind closed doors in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, at the federal prosecutor’s office within the federal courthouse in the state capital, and they met again on Friday.Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, on Friday afternoon said Blanche had finished his questioning for the day, NBC News first reported.Markus told reporters as he left the courthouse in downtown Tallahassee: “We started this morning right around 9 o’clock, and went to now lunchtime, and we’re finished after all day, yesterday and today. Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability. She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”He added: “They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine. Everything.”The justice department has not said whether Blanche intends to question Maxwell further. Markus said he did not know whether the discussions would have any impact on her case. He had previously said Thursday’s meeting was “very productive”.Blanche had announced earlier in the week that he had contacted Maxwell’s lawyers to see if she might have “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims”.Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee, after a jury convicted her of sex trafficking in 2021.An uproar continues to engulf Donald Trump and calls have intensified for his administration to release all details of the federal investigation into Epstein, while questions remain about whether Maxwell has any fresh light to shed on her former boyfriend’s crimes.Meanwhile, the US supreme court is due to wade into the controversy and decide whether to hear a bid by Maxwell to overturn her criminal conviction.Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a jail cell in New York while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to Epstein, headed to Scotland on Friday for a trip that will mix golf with politics mostly out of public view. Protests await the president in the UK over his extreme agenda while scandal nips at his heels in the US.Further talking to reporters after Friday’s meeting, Markus said: “We don’t know how it’s going to play out. We just know that this was the first opportunity she’s ever been given to answer questions about what happened, and so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr Epstein. And she’s the person who’s answering those questions.”Prosecutors and the judge who oversaw Maxwell’s 2021 trial have said that she made multiple false statements under oath and failed to take responsibility for her actions. She was convicted for sex trafficking and other crimes, and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.“People have questioned her honesty, which I think is just wrong,” Markus said.Asked if Maxwell had received an offer of clemency from the government, Markus said no offer had been made.Although the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, earlier this year had promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and there was no evidence of a client list or blackmail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince then, the department has sought permission to unseal grand jury transcripts from its prior investigations into Epstein and Maxwell.On Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests.Trump’s name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s, while several media outlets have this month reported previously unpublicized and friendly communications from the US president to the high-profile financier.Meanwhile, the supreme court justices, now on their summer recess, are expected in late September to consider whether to take up the appeal by Maxwell against her conviction in 2021 by a jury in New York for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.Maxwell’s lawyers have told the supreme court that her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors had made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates and should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York. Her lawyers have a Monday deadline for filing their final written brief in their appeal to the court.Some legal experts see merit in Maxwell’s claim, noting that it touches on an unsettled matter of US law that has divided some of the nation’s regional federal appeals courts.Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said there was a chance that the supreme court would take up the case, and noted the disagreement among appeals courts. Such a split among circuit courts can be a factor when the nation’s top judicial body considers whether or not to hear a case.“The question of whether a plea agreement from one US attorney’s office binds other federal prosecution as a whole is a serious issue that has split the circuits,” Epner said.While uncommon, “there have been several cases presenting the issue over the years”, Epner added.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest

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      On the morning of 2 May, teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol.In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.A highway patrol officer asked everyone in the van to identify themselves, then called for backup. Officers with US border patrol arrived on the scene.Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: “You’ve got no rights here. You’re a migo, brother.” Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use “funny” and quipping: “You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.”The footage has put fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used by US law enforcement officials as the Trump administration sets ambitious enforcement targets to detain thousands of immigrants every day.“The federal government has imposed quotas for the arrest of immigrants,” said Jack Scarola, an attorney who is advocating on behalf of Laynez-Ambrosio and working with the non-profit Guatemalan-Maya Center, which provided the footage to the Guardian. “Any time law enforcement is compelled to work towards a quota, it poses a significant risk to other rights.”Chokeholds, stun guns and laughterThe incident unfolded at roughly 9am, when a highway patrol officer pulled over the company work van, driven by Laynez-Ambrosio’s mother, and discovered that she had a suspended license. Laynez-Ambrosio said he is unsure why the van was pulled over, as his mother was driving below the speed limit.Laynez-Ambrosio hadn’t intended to film the interaction – he already had his phone out to show his mom “a silly TikTok”, he said – but immediately clicked record when it became clear what was happening.View image in fullscreenThe video begins after the van has been pulled over and the border patrol had arrived. A female officer can be heard asking, in Spanish, whether anyone is in the country illegally. One of Laynez-Ambrosio’s friends answers that he is undocumented. “That’s when they said, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Laynez-Ambrosio recalled.Laynez-Ambrosio said things turned aggressive before the group even had a chance to exit the van. One of the officers “put his hand inside the window”, he said, “popped the door open, grabbed my friend by the neck and had him in a chokehold”.Footage appears to show officers then reaching for Laynez-Ambrosio and his other friend as Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard protesting: “You can’t grab me like that.” Multiple officers can be seen pulling the other man from the van and telling him to “put your fucking head down”. The footage captures the sound of a stun gun as Laynez-Ambrosio’s friend cries out in pain and drops to the ground.Laynez-Ambrosio said that his friend was not resisting, and that he didn’t speak English and didn’t understand the officer’s commands. “My friend didn’t do anything before they grabbed him,” he said.View image in fullscreenIn the video, Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard repeatedly telling his friend, in Spanish, to not resist. “I wasn’t really worried about myself because I knew I was going to get out of the situation,” he said. “But I was worried about him. I could speak up for him but not fight back, because I would’ve made the situation worse.”Laynez-Ambrosio can also be heard telling officers: “I was born and raised right here.” Still, he was pushed to the ground and says that an officer aimed a stun gun at him. He was subsequently arrested and held in a cell at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) station for six hours.Audio in the video catches the unidentified officers debriefing and appearing to make light of the stun gun use. “You’re funny, bro,” one officer can be overheard saying to another, followed by laughter.Another officer says, “They’re starting to resist more now,” to which an officer replies: “We’re going to end up shooting some of them.”Later in the footage, the officers move on to general celebration – “Goddamn! Woo! Nice!” – and talk of the potential bonus they’ll be getting: “Just remember, you can smell that [inaudible] $30,000 bonus.” It is unclear what bonus they are referring to. Donald Trump’s recent spending bill includes billions of additional dollars for Ice that could be spent on recruitment and retention tactics such as bonuses.Laynez-Ambrosio said his two friends were eventually transferred to the Krome detention center in Miami. He believes they were released on bail and are awaiting a court hearing, but said it has been difficult to stay in touch with them.Laynez-Ambrosio’s notice to appear in court confirms that the border patrol arrived on the scene, having been called in by the highway patrol. His other legal representative, Victoria Mesa-Estrada, also confirmed that border patrol officers transported the three men to the border patrol facility.The Florida highway patrol, CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment before publication.‘We are good people’Laynez-Ambrosio was charged with obstruction without violence and sentenced to 10 hours of community service and a four-hour anger management course. While in detention, he said, police threatened him with charges if he did not delete the video footage from his phone, but he refused.Scarola, his lawyer, said the charges were retaliation for filming the incident. “Kenny was charged with filming [and was] alleged to have interfered with the activities of law enforcement,” he explained. “But there was no intended interference – merely the exercise of a right to record what was happening.”In February, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an agreement between the state and the Department of Homeland Security allowing Florida highway patrol troopers to be trained and approved by Ice to arrest and detain immigrants. While such agreements have been inked across the US, Florida has the largest concentration of these deals.View image in fullscreenFather Frank O’Loughlin, founder and executive director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center, the advocates for Laynez-Ambrosio, says the incident has further eroded trust between Florida’s immigrant community and the police. “This is a story about the corruption of law enforcement by Maga and the brutality of state and federal troopers – formerly public servants – towards nonviolent people,” he said.Meanwhile, Laynez-Ambrosio is trying to recover from the ordeal, and hopes the footage raises awareness of how immigrants are being treated in the US. “It didn’t need to go down like that. If they knew that my people were undocumented, they could’ve just kindly taken them out of the car and arrested them,” he said. “It hurt me bad to see my friends like that. Because they’re just good people, trying to earn an honest living.”

      The Guardian is granting anonymity to Laynez-Ambrosio’s mother and the men arrested in the footage to protect their privacy More

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      US supreme court blocks Florida from enforcing anti-immigration law

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      The US supreme court maintained on Wednesday a judicial block on a Republican-crafted Florida law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants in the United States to enter the state.The justices denied a request by state officials to lift an order by the Florida-based US district judge Kathleen Williams that barred them from carrying out arrests and prosecutions under the law while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts. Williams ruled that Florida’s law conflicted with the federal government’s authority over immigration policy.The law, signed by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in February and backed by the Trump administration, made it a felony for some undocumented migrants to enter Florida, while also imposing pre-trial jail time without bond.“This denial reaffirms a bedrock principle that dates back 150 years: States may not regulate immigration,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “It is past time for states to get the message.”After Williams blocked the law, Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, and other state officials filed the emergency request on 17 June asking the supreme court to halt the judge’s order. Williams had found that the Florida law was probably unconstitutional for encroaching on the federal government’s exclusive authority over US immigration policy.The state’s request to the justices was backed by America First Legal, a conservative group co-founded by Stephen Miller, a senior aide to Donald Trump and a key architect of the administration’s hardline immigration policies.Florida’s immigration measure, called SB 4-C, was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by DeSantis. It made Florida one of at least seven states to pass such laws in recent years, according to court filings.The American Civil Liberties Union in April sued in federal court to challenge the law, arguing that the state should not be able to “enforce its own state immigration system outside of federal supervision and control”. Williams agreed.The law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for undocumented adult immigrants who are convicted of entering Florida after arriving in the United States without following federal immigration law. Florida officials contend that the state measure complies with – rather than conflicts with – federal law.Sentences for violations begin at nine months’ imprisonment for first offenders and reach up to five years for certain undocumented immigrants in the country who have felony records and enter Florida after having been deported or ordered by a federal judge to be removed from the United States.The state law exempts undocumented immigrants in the country who were given certain authorization by the federal government to remain in the United States. Florida’s immigration crackdown makes no exceptions, however, for those seeking humanitarian protection or with pending applications for immigration relief, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued in federal court to challenge the law.The ACLU filed a class-action suit on behalf of two undocumented immigrants who reside in Florida, an immigration advocacy group called the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the non-profit group Farmworker Association of Florida, whose members include immigrants in the United States illegally who travel in and out of Florida seasonally to harvest crops. Some of the arguments in the lawsuit included claims that it violates the federal “commerce clause”, which bars states from blocking commerce between states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, in a statement issued after the challenge was filed said that Florida’s law “is not just unconstitutional – it’s cruel and dangerous”.Williams issued a preliminary injunction in April that barred Florida officials from enforcing the measure.The Atlanta-based 11th US circuit court of appeals in June upheld the judge’s ruling, prompting the Florida officials to make an emergency request to the supreme court.In a filing on 7 July, the state of Florida pointed to a brief filed by the Trump administration in the appeals case, in support of SB 4-C. “That decision is wrong and should be reversed,” administration lawyers wrote at the time.On the same day that Florida’s attorney general filed the state’s supreme court request, Williams found him in civil contempt of court for failing to follow her order to direct all state law enforcement officers not to enforce the immigration measure while it remained blocked by the judge. Williams said that Uthmeier only informed the state law enforcement agencies about her order and later instructed them to arrest people anyway. Williams ordered Uthmeier to provide an update to the court every two weeks on any enforcement of the law.Other states have tried to pass similar laws, including Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Iowa, which have attempted to make entering their jurisdictions, while undocumented, a state crime. More

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      Miami city officials cancelled an election. Outraged voters call it a power grab

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      Candidates for local office in Miami have been prepping mailers, gathering volunteers, raising money and hitting the street for the last year, with voters expecting to see a robust campaign to replace the city’s term-limited, scandal-chased mayor.Last week, Miami’s city commission told those voters they’ll have to wait an extra year. In a 3-2 vote, the commission changed the city’s election bylaws to push the municipal races back to 2026.Commissioners said they made the change in the name of cost savings and increased voter engagement when higher-profile races for Congress or the presidency may be on the ballot. But they gave themselves an extra year in office without asking voters for permission first. And in a moment when the underpinnings of democracy appear to be cracking in America, a cavalier attitude toward an election seems ominous to some Miami residents.“What worries people about this is, we don’t want to give the guy in the White House any ideas,” said John Jackson, a Miami resident and former political operative. There’s no real mechanism to try something like this at the federal level, he said, “but it still kind of makes people a little worried. I don’t know anyone on any side of the aisle – Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal – who just thinks that this was a good thing”.Florida attorney general James Uthmeier sent Miami’s mayor a warning letter on 26 June, telling the city that the proposal to change election dates without asking permission from voters first violates the city and county’s charter and the state constitution.Miami is home “to thousands of patriotic Cuban Americans who know better than most about regimes that cavalierly delay elections and prolong their terms in power”, Uthmeier wrote. “The City of Miami owes to its citizens what the law requires.”City leaders could have avoided this problem by placing the question on the ballot and accepting a shorter term if voters chose to hold future elections on even-numbered years, said Michael Hepburn, a Miami mayoral candidate.“The city of Miami is actually still scheduled to have a election this year for other ballot referendums,” Hepburn said. “So what they’re doing is actually just stupid, because you literally still gonna have people come out this year on November 4 and vote for, like, three other questions on the ballot.”By structuring the change this way, however, it permits the city commissioner, Joe Carollo, and the Miami mayor, Francis Suarez – both term-limited – to remain in office for an additional year.Hepburn said he thinks Juarez wants to use the extra year to his advantage. “He’s started thinking about how he could stay in office and use his current office to parlay that into his next office. He may be running for governor next year. He may be running for US Congress. Who knows? But he’ll be able to do it from the office of mayor, which just helps him.”Hepburn and other candidates have either filed lawsuits or are awaiting the actions of the attorney general in response to the ordinance change.“The decision by city leaders to arbitrarily extend their terms by a full year without voter approval is exactly why so many are up in arms by the chaos and dysfunction of our city government,” said Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade county commissioner running to become the city’s next mayor.Instead of extending current elected terms, Higgins said she would support shortening a new mayor’s term by one year and moving the election to 2028 to achieve optimal voter participation. “That’s why I believe moving forward with the planned elections this November should have been the only decision. More troubling, a run-off in December 2026 will only cost taxpayers more money and result in lower turnout than this year’s planned election.”The mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.“I support and encourage participation in the electoral process,” said city of Miami commissioner Christine King. “Voting is the single most important act one can do for their country and in this instance our community. In the city of Miami, voter turnout is historically low for odd numbered year elections. My vote in support of moving our elections to even numbered years was a vote for democracy.”The argument for on-cycle elections makes sense to students of civic participation. Suarez defeated his challenger 21,479 to 3,166 in the 2021 off-year election. In a Miami referendum about residency requirements for the Miami mayor in 2024, with Donald Trump facing Kamala Harris as the marquee matchup at the top of the ballot, 127,460 people cast a vote, more than five times as many voters.“The upshot is that on-cycle elections … are generally viewed as a win for democracy,” said Matthew Nelsen, an assistant political science professor at the University of Miami. “On-cycle elections ensure that the media attention and campaigning that comes along with a national midterm or presidential election will also trickle down into local races.”Commissioner Damian Pardo, the author of the election change, argued that holding municipal elections on off years is a form of voter suppression. “The reason behind this is to boost voter participation,” he told local media. “When we realized we actually had potentially three votes to get this done, we moved forward. When we can take reform, we take it.”Nonetheless, the commission chose not to let voters make this change.“Ideally, the voters would have had the ability to vote on this,” Pardo said. “However, given the situation in this context, where we had the opportunity to pass it … in order to give the voters what they want, you might actually undermine them by putting it to a vote, because by the time that time lapses, you may no longer have those three votes.”Two of the three commissioners who voted for the change – Pardo and King – are Democrats.“If they can move it, why not the president?” said Marion Brown, a candidate challenging King in the election that the commission postponed. “Let the president move it, let the governor move it, let everyone in the election do the same thing.”The third commissioner, Ralph Rosado, is a Republican, as is the mayor. Municipal elections are technically nonpartisan in Miami.“Our county mayor is Democratic. Miami’s mayor is Republican. But none of that really matters, because politics is just weird here,” Jackson said. “To me, it was just entrenched politicians who said ‘well, gonna save money and we’re gonna raise turnout’. But the reality is, they’re term-limited, and now they get an extra term.”Politics in Miami tends to protect a group of four or five politically-powerful families at the expense of the public interest, said Marisol Zenteno, president of the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade.“People are very irritated. They don’t trust in the system. They feel that it’s the same people manipulating it and that it’s pretty much the same people winning all the time,” she said. “Voters are just disillusioned.” More

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      ‘This bill protects our precious waters’: how a Florida environmental group scored a win against big oil

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      The giant and catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, didn’t reach Apalachicola Bay in 2010, but the threat of oil reaching this beautiful and environmentally valuable stretch of northern Florida’s Gulf coast was still enough to devastate the region’s economy.The Florida state congressman Jason Shoaf remembers how the threat affected the bay.“It harmed our commercial fishing, aquaculture operations, and just the threat of oil kept tourists away for months,” Shoaf recalls. “Businesses were forced to close, jobs were lost, and the disaster reshaped our region forever.”Those memories were freshly triggered in April 2024, when the Florida department of environmental protection (DEP) granted a permit to Louisiana-based Clearwater Land and Minerals for exploratory oil drilling on the Apalachicola River basin. So area residents, along with environmental and business groups, formed a Kill the Drill coalition to oppose the permit.A year later, the coalition’s efforts and an administrative challenge to the DEP’s permit by the non-profit Apalachicola Riverkeepers prevailed when Judge Lawrence P Stevenson recommended the department deny the permit.In May, the DEP reversed course and denied the permit.But that was not enough to convince those seeking to preserve the region’s environment. Shoaf, who represents Florida’s north-eastern Gulf coast region, applauded the DEP’s decision but says the threat of oil exploration and drilling near north Florida’s inland waterways would only be ended by a permanent ban. So to prevent future threats and the DEP from issuing other oil exploratory drilling permits, Shoaf and state representative Allison Tant co-authored House Bill 1143.“While the permit to Clearwater Land and Minerals was denied, we can’t assume the next one will be,” Shoaf says. “HB 1143 protects our precious water resources and the ecosystems that depend on them by prohibiting drilling, exploration and production of oil, gas and other petroleum products within 10 miles of a national estuarine research reserve in counties designated as rural areas of opportunity. It also requires the Florida department of environmental protection to ensure natural resources are adequately protected in the event of an accident.”In April, the legislature overwhelmingly passed HB 1143 with only one dissenting vote in the Senate. It was presented to Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, on 18 June. And, despite a poor recent record on protecting the environment, DeSantis signed the bill last week – handing the coalition that lobbied for it a cheering victory.The area now saved from the oil industry is invaluable both to nature and the people who live there. The Apalachicola River, formed by the meeting of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, flows 160 miles (258km) to the Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf. Both the river and bay are critical to the region’s tourism and seafood production industries.For environmental campaigners, the success of their efforts might help lay to rest the ghosts of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which released nearly 3.19m barrels of oil into the gulf.“Oil from the BP spill didn’t reach our coasts, but the damage caused by the threat was enough,” Tant says. “We’ve seen what can happen. We’ve lived it. This is not theoretical. It was a perilous time for small businesses and for those who lived in the area. It stopped tourism and shuttered small businesses. So it defies logic to think it’s a good idea to drill for oil along the Apalachicola River.”Adrianne Johnson is executive director of the Florida Shellfish Aquaculture Association which represents more than 350 shellfish farmers in Florida. Johnson, an Apalachicola native, became involved in the Kill the Drill movement for personal and business reasons.“This region has a deep collective memory of how the Gulf oil spill devastated the regional economy and collapsed the oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay,” Johnson explains. “And that was just the threat of oil. The majority of the state’s oyster farms operate across Wakulla, Franklin and Gulf counties, and these areas downriver would be most impacted by oil drilling upriver (at the proposed site in Calhoun county). If there were to be a spill upriver because of drilling in the basin, it would have catastrophic environmental and economic impacts on the area that would be felt for generations.”Johnson also points to the region’s frequent weather-related natural disasters, such as hurricanes, as another reason why drilling had to be banned in the region.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Our shellfish farmers are still recovering from the multiple hurricanes of 2024,” she explains. “But the reality of being a Florida farmer is having to contend with these weather-related events. Hurricanes and natural disasters are outside of our control. Permitting oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas is very much within our control and is an unnecessary threat to our industry.”Tant agrees.“We are a hurricane-prone state,” she says. “We can’t get away from that. It’s not a question of will we get hit by a hurricane because we know it’s going to happen. But an oil spill caused by a hurricane would make the disaster 100 times worse.”According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the Deep Horizon oil spill caused the loss of 8.3 billion oysters, the deaths of nearly 105,400 sea birds, 7,600 adult and 160,000 juvenile sea turtles, and a 51% decrease in dolphins in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay.Craig Diamond, current board member and past president of Apalachicola Riverkeeper, says another factor behind the ban was the river system itself.“A spill would be highly impactful given the existing stresses in the system,” says Diamond, who has worked with the Northwest Florida Water Management District and taught graduate courses on water resources at Florida State University. “Apalachicola Bay Riverkeeper and its allies believe the long-term risks of fossil fuel exploitation in the floodplain or bay (or nearshore) far outweigh the short-term benefits.”Shoaf says he was inspired to write HB 1143 by the community’s grassroots efforts to defend the region’s natural resources.“This bill is essential to prevent unnecessary and irreparable harm to Apalachicola Bay, as well as the economies and ecosystems that depend on it,” he says.After DeSantis signed the bill into law, the threat of drilling has now receded into the distance for the foreseeable future. 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      Democratic lawmakers denied entry to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration jail

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      A group of Florida lawmakers were denied entry on Thursday into the new Florida-based immigration jail dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” one day after the first immigrant detainees began to arrive.Five Democratic lawmakers attempted to enter the facility, which was previously toured on Tuesday by White House officials, but were stopped by law enforcement officers from local agencies, according to the state representative Anna Eskamani in an interview with CNN.“This is a blatant abuse of power and an attempt to conceal human rights violations from the public eye,” the five said in a joint statement.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that the first detentions at the facility began on Wednesday, but did not respond to questions regarding the number of people detained so far.The controversial Everglades jail was quickly set up in a partnership between the federal and Florida state governments. Sitting approximately 50 miles (80km) west of Miami, the remote facility is managed by the state but in large part funded the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).“It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. A little controversial, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said on Tuesday after touring the site. During the tour, Trump joked about immigrants being pursued by snakes and alligators if they attempted to escape.Since Trump took office, Florida has been assisting the administration’s goals in rounding up a large number of immigrants to be detained and deported. Through a program called 287(g), local law enforcement agencies partner with DHS and become deputized to carry out immigration enforcement operations. According to the state government, Florida has more 287(g) deputizations than any other state in the US, which has allowed it to engage in widespread operations targeting immigrant communities.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionImmigrants arrested by Florida law enforcement under the arrangement will be detained at the facility, DHS said.“You’ll have a lot of people that will deport on their own because they don’t want to end up in an Alligator Alcatraz, or some of these other places,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis said after touring the facility with Trump. “This is a model, but we need other states to step up.”Being undocumented in the US is not a crime; rather, it is a civil offense. Data analysis by the Guardian shows that there has been a dramatic nationwide increase in the arrest of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record. The White House has pressured immigration officials to arrest 3,000 people per day, with the reported goal of reaching one million a year.Two non-profit groups have sued DHS, claiming the site’s buildup is violating environmental policies. DHS said it expects the facility to expand quickly to 5,000 beds. More

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      How Florida’s Attempt to Let Teens Sleep Longer Fell Apart

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      After lawmakers required high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., school administrators complained that it was unworkable. Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a repeal.Florida’s brief attempt to let high school students sleep longer began two years ago when one of the state’s most powerful politicians listened to an audiobook.The book, “Why We Sleep,” argues that sufficient sleep is fundamental to nearly every aspect of human functioning. Paul Renner, then the Republican speaker of the State House, said reading it turned him into a “sleep evangelist”; he started tracking his own sleep and pressing the book on other lawmakers.To give teenagers more time to rest, he pushed for a new law that would require public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. and middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m. In 2023, Florida became only the second state — after California, its political opposite — to adopt such a requirement, and it asked schools to comply by 2026.“School start times are one of those issues that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind,” Mr. Renner said in an interview.This year, it all fell apart.Facing growing opposition from school administrators who said the later times were unworkable and costly, the Legislature repealed the requirement last month.Florida’s experiment was over before it began, an example of a policy driven by a single powerful lawmaker that flopped once he was termed out of office. It also illustrates how, even as concerns grow about the well-being of American teenagers, a modest scheduling shift with broad support from scientific and medical experts can struggle to gain traction.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Detention and Deportation As Seen Through a Family Group Chat

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      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> Livan (teammate) Feb. 15 8:55 AM 7:07 PM <!–> [–><!–>Carlos knew he fit the profile of a “criminal alien” the Trump administration had pledged to target. Not long after coming to the United States from Venezuela, he had been convicted of fraud. But he had served […] More

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      Why TV Meteorologist John Morales’s Hurricane Plea Went Viral

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      A TV forecaster said he was not confident he could predict the paths of storms this year, touching a nerve amid concerns about how federal cuts could affect hurricane season.A meteorologist who has spent his career warning South Florida about hurricanes had a new warning for viewers last week: He’s not sure he can do it this year.John Morales of WTVJ in Miami said the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the National Weather Service could leave television forecasters like him “flying blind” this hurricane season. “We may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline,” he warned.Clips of Mr. Morales’s comments have spread widely: one posted on MSNBC’s TikTok account has nearly 4,500 comments, and news outlets around the world have written articles about what he said. (This isn’t the first time Mr. Morales has been the subject of viral attention: In the fall, his emotional reaction to Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification also hit a nerve.)Here’s what Mr. Morales had to say and more about what is going on with the Weather Service.He warned of less accurate forecasts.Mr. Morales’s presentation on Monday began with a clip of himself following the Category 5 Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as it moved over the Bahamas. He reassured his Florida viewers that the powerful storm would turn north before it reached their coastline. And it did, exactly when Mr. Morales assured anxious viewers it would.The clip cuts to him in present day, slightly older and now wearing glasses. He recalled the confidence he used to have in delivering an accurate forecast to his viewers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More