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    Too bad I can’t run, but we’ll see what happens, says Trump on unconstitutional third term

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    Donald Trump said “it’s too bad” he is not allowed to run for a third term, conceding the constitutional reality even as he expressed interest in continuing to serve.“If you read it, it’s pretty clear,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One from Japan to South Korea on Wednesday. “I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad.”The president’s comments, which continue his on-again, off-again musings about a third term, came a day after the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said it would be impossible for Trump to stay in the White House. “I don’t see a path for that,” the Republican told reporters at the US Capitol on Tuesday.Johnson, who has built his career by drawing closer to Trump, said he discussed the issue with the president and thought he understood. “He and I have talked about the constrictions of the constitution,” he said.The speaker described how the constitution’s 22nd amendment does not allow for a third presidential term, and changing that with a new amendment would be a cumbersome, years-long process of winning over both states and members of Congress.Johnson dismissed worries about a potential third term as “hair on fire” by the president’s critics. “He has a good time with that, trolling the Democrats,” Johnson said.Trump stopped short of characterizing his conversation with Johnson, and his description of the prohibition on third terms was somewhat less definitive.“Based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run,” he said on Wednesday. “So we’ll see what happens.”Trump has repeatedly raised the idea of trying to stay in power. Hats saying “Trump 2028” are passed out as keepsakes to lawmakers and others visiting the White House, and Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, the podcaster Steve Bannon, has revived the idea of a third Trump term.Trump told reporters on Monday on Air Force One that “I would love to do it”.He went on to say the Republican party had “a great group of people” for the next presidential election in Marco Rubio, the secretary of state who was travelling with him, and JD Vance, the vice-president who visited with senators at the Capitol on Tuesday.Asked about a strategy where he could run as vice-president, which would be allowed, and then work himself into the presidency, he dismissed the idea as “too cute”.“You’d be allowed to do that, but I wouldn’t do that,” he said. More

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      Court to reconsider ruling that allowed Trump to send troops to Portland

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      The Trump administration remains barred from deploying the national guard in Portland, Oregon, following a federal appeals court ruling.The ninth circuit court of appeals agreed on Tuesday that it would rehear a case over the president’s authority with a broader court of 11 judges. The appeals court also vacated a ruling from a three-judge panel last week that sided with the Trump administration.The order is the latest development in a long legal saga over whether Donald Trump has the authority and justification to deploy national guard forces in Portland. The Oregon city has had about 200 federalized guard members in limbo since late September when Trump attempted to mobilize in response to months of protests there.The federal government has argued that federal officials working at the ICE facility in south Portland were under attack, while city and state officials argue that local officers have control of the situation.In defiance of Trump’s characterization of Portland as “war ravaged”, locals have been sharing videos of the city’s lush hiking trails and thriving food scene, and drawing up plans for Emergency Naked Bike Ride against “the militarization of our city”.The appeals court decision on Tuesday came after US district judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee in Portland, issued two temporary restraining orders this month – one that blocked the president from federalizing the Oregon national guard, and another stopping him from deploying any national guard troops in Oregon, after Trump tried to evade the first order by calling up troops from California.On Monday, the ninth circuit panel put the first ruling on hold – allowing Trump to take command of 200 Oregon national guard – but the second ruling remained in place, blocking Trump from actually deploying the troops.The Tuesday decision means that the issue will be heard “en banc” – with both rulings under consideration together – by a panel of 11 judges.“This ruling shows the truth matters and that the courts are working to hold this administration accountable. The constitution limits the president’s power, and Oregon’s communities cannot be treated as a training ground for unchecked federal authority,” said Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield wrote in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The court is sending a clear message: the president cannot send the military into US cities unnecessarily. We will continue defending Oregon’s laws, values, and sovereignty as this case moves forward and our fight continues in the courts.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: senators pass measure that would scrap Brazil tariffs in rare fightback against trade war

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      The Republican-led US Senate has passed a measure that would terminate Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Brazilian imports, including coffee, beef and other products, in a rare bipartisan show of opposition to the president’s trade war.The vote passed 52-48. The resolution was led by Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, and seeks to overturn the national emergency that Trump has declared to justify the levies.“Tariffs are a tax on American consumers. Tariffs are a tax on American businesses. And they are a tax that is imposed by a single person: Donald J Trump,” Kaine said in a floor speech.Senators pass vote to block Brazil tariffs The US Senate has approved a bipartisan effort to stop Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from Brazil. In a rare show of working together, senators passed the measure on Tuesday night. But it is certain to stall in the US House – and if the measure were to reach the president’s desk, it would likely meet Trump’s veto.Read the full storyBorder patrol leader told to go to court every weekday to report on Chicago enforcementA federal judge has ordered Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, to appear in federal court each weekday to report on the day’s incidents in an exceptional bid to impose oversight over the government’s militarized raids in the city.The order came after a terse hearing on Tuesday morning.Read the full storyTrump-appointed acting US attorney disqualified from cases for ‘unlawfully serving’A federal judge disqualified acting US attorney Bill Essayli in Southern California from several cases after concluding Tuesday that the Trump appointee has stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law.US district judge J Michael Seabright disqualified Essayli from supervising the criminal prosecutions in three cases, siding with defense lawyers who argued that his authority expired in July.Read the full storyShutdown stretches into 28th day with no end in sightThe US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding.Read the full storyICE leadership to be revamped to intensify deportationsThe Trump administration is planning to revamp the leadership of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to reports, as the government seeks to intensify its mass deportation efforts.Multiple news outlets have reported that the government intends to reassign multiple directors of ICE field offices in the coming days, potentially replacing them with border patrol officials.Read the full storyWhite House sued over food stamps suspensionA coalition of more than two dozen states on Tuesday sued the Trump administration over its decision to suspend food stamps during the government shutdown.The lawsuit, co-led by New York, California and Massachusetts, asks a federal judge to force the US Department of Agriculture to tap into emergency reserve funds to distribute food benefits to the nearly 42 million families and children who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap). The USDA has said no benefits will be issued on 1 November.Read the full storyBiden ‘autopen’ claims revived in new reportUS House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled their long-promised report on Joe Biden’s use of the autopen during his presidency, largely rehashing public information while criticizing his time in office and making sweeping accusations about the workings of his White House.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the US on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said on Tuesday.

      Nearly 11,000 air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration employees received a $0 paycheck on Tuesday, as the federal government shutdown rolls through its fourth week. They remain required to work.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 27 October 2025. More

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      Border patrol leader told to go to court every weekday to report on Chicago enforcement

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      A federal judge has ordered Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, to appear in federal court each weekday to report on the day’s incidents in an exceptional bid to impose oversight over the government’s militarized raids in the city.The order came following a terse hearing on Tuesday morning.“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer,” US district judge Sara Ellis told Bovino. “They just don’t. And you can’t use riot control weapons against them.”Ellis was referring to an incident over the weekend, when federal agents deployed chemical irritants against residents, including in a neighborhood where dozens of children were planning to march in a Halloween parade.The order today is the latest of several attempts to maintain oversight over Bovino and his agents, who have appeared to repeatedly violate court orders to curb their use of force amid a heavily militarized immigration crackdown in Chicago. The administration has dubbed the movement in Chicago as “Operation Midway Blitz” and it’s resulted in at least 3,000 arrests since September.The use of force by federal agents in Chicago first came before Ellis after media organizations, protestors and clergy members filed a lawsuit accusing agents of “extreme brutality” in an attempt to “silence the press and civilians”. She ordered agents to avoid using tear gas in a crowd without first issuing two warnings.When agents repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police despite the order, Ellis ordered agents to wear body cameras. During the hearing on Tuesday, she told Bovino that he must personally get a body camera and complete training on the use of a body camera by Friday.Bovino – who appeared in his green fatigues with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insignia – agreed to each request, responding: “Yes, ma’am.”“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress … My role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws, the agents are acting in a manner that is consistent with the constitution,” Ellis said.Bovino, chief of the border patrol sector in El Centro, California, along the US-Mexico border, has become the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.In LA, agents smashed car windows and blew open a door to a house while a woman and her two young children were inside. Immigration advocates and lawyers have raised concerns about border patrol agents flooding US cities, as the agents are trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, and not to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.The Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses the CBP, did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment on Ellis’s latest order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn hearings, federal officials have said that they used riot control gear and tear gas in response to threats. They have not offered proof that these were valid threats.Ellis questioned Bovino’s own use of tear gas, after he was captured on video throwing a canister of gas into a group of residents of Little Village, a largely immigrant and Mexican American neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side.She also questioned his agents’ use of force in the Old Irving Park neighborhood, which she described as “a fairly quiet neighborhood [with] a lot of families, a lot of single-family homes”.“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday,” she said. “And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.” More

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      Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel laureate and Trump critic, says US visa revoked

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      The Trump administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical of Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka revealed on Tuesday.“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference.Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he destroyed his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.Soyinka speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have struck a nerve and contributed to the US consulate’s decision.Soyinka said earlier this year that the US consulate in Lagos had called him in for an interview to reassess his visa, which he said he would not attend.According to a letter from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, seen by Agence France-Presse, officials have cancelled his visa, citing US state department regulations that allow “a consular officer, the secretary, or a department official to whom the secretary has delegated this authority … to revoke a nonimmigrant visa at any time, in his or her discretion”.Reading the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic centre, he jokingly called it a “rather curious love letter from an embassy”, while telling any organisations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka said.The US embassy in Abuja, the capital, said it could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality rules.The Trump administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.Soyinka said he had recently compared Trump to Uganda’s Amin, something he said Trump “should be proud of”.“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka said. “He’s been behaving like a dictator.”The 91-year-old playwright behind Death and the King’s Horseman has taught at and been awarded honours from top US universities including Harvard and Cornell.His latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, a satire about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021. Soyinka described the book as his “gift to Nigeria” in an interiview with the Guardian.In February, the Crucible theatre in Sheffield staged Death and the King’s Horseman.Soyinka left the door open to accepting an invitation to the United States should circumstances change, but added: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”He went on to criticise the ramped-up arrests of undocumented immigrants in the country.“This is not about me,” Soyinka said. “When we see people being picked off the street – people being hauled up and they disappear for a month … old women, children being separated. So that’s really what concerns me.”Trump’s crackdown has seen national guard troops deployed to US cities and citizens temporarily detained as part of aggressive raids, as well as the curtailing of legal means of entry. More

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      Man deported to Laos despite US court order blocking his removal, attorneys say

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      Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the US on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said on Tuesday.US district judge Shelly Dick last week ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the United States while he presented what the judge called his “substantial claim of US citizenship”, court records show. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand but was granted lawful permanent residence in the US before his first birthday, according to court filings.But Souvannarath on Sunday messaged his wife on WhatsApp and told her he was in Dongmakkhai, Laos, according to a screenshot she shared with the Associated Press. The message ends with “love y’all”.“It is very unfortunate, especially for the children that we have together,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP.Emails, phone calls and text messages sent to ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, called the deportation a “stunning violation of a federal court order”. Before his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility at the Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola.“ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”The deportation comes as Trump administration officials have repeatedly clashed with the courts over their attempts to deport large numbers of immigrants. There have been previous cases of US citizens being deported, including US-born children.Chanthila Souvannarath was taken into ICE custody in June following an annual check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, where he had been living, his wife said.“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP. “It was the hardest two months of my life.”He spent much of his childhood living with one or both of his parents in Hawaii, Washington state and California. His father, a native of Laos, is a naturalized US citizen, and Souvannarath claims his citizenship derives from that status.“I continuously lived in the United States since infancy,” Souvannarath wrote in a letter from immigration detention, “and I have always considered myself an American citizen.”Souvannarath filed an emergency motion seeking to delay his deportation. Dick, the federal judge based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday, citing the “irreparable harm that would be caused by immediate deportation”.“Though the government has an interest in the enforcement of its immigration laws, the potential removal of a US citizen weighs heavily against the public interest,” wrote Dick, who was appointed to the federal bench by president Barack Obama. Souvannarath would be “unable to effectively litigate his case from Laos”, she added.The court docket shows no changes in Souvannarath’s case since the judge issued the temporary restraining order, which was scheduled to expire on 6 November. Through her office, Dick declined to comment. More

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      Shutdown stretches into 28th day as Senate again fails to pass spending legislation

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      The US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding.For the 13th time, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have funded federal agencies through 21 November. The minority party has refused to provide the necessary support for the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold for advancement in the Senate because it does not include funding for healthcare programs, or curbs on Donald Trump’s cuts to congressionally approved funding.The quagmire continued even after the president of the largest federal workers union called on Congress to pass the Republican proposal, citing the economic pain caused to government workers.“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight. Today I’m making mine: it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay – today,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement released on Monday.But the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, signaled no change in his party’s strategy of holding out for concession from the Republicans, citing the imminent rise of premiums for Affordable Care Act health plans. Though tax credits that lower their costs expire at the end of the year, many enrollees in the plans have received notices of steep premium increases ahead of Saturday’s beginning of the open enrollment period.“Families are going to be in panic this weekend all across America, millions of them. How are they going to pay this bill? How are they going to live without healthcare? It’s tragic, and of course, it didn’t have to be, but Republicans are doing nothing,” Schumer told reporters at the US Capitol.The Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, seized on the AFGE’s statement to argue that Democrats were being irresponsible for refusing to back the bill, which Republicans in the House of Representatives approved on a near party line vote last month before the speaker, Mike Johnson, ordered the chamber into a recess that has yet to end.View image in fullscreen“It’s not very often that I get a chance to say this, but I agree with the AFGE,” Thune said.He reiterated that he would negotiate with Democrats over the expiring tax credits, but not with “a gun to our heads”.“I sincerely hope, in the best interest of every American who is impacted by this shutdown, and particularly those who are going to be really adversely impacted come this weekend, that the enough Democrats will come to their senses and deliver the five votes that are necessary to get this bill on the president’s desk,” Thune said, adding that he planned to hold further votes on the spending legislation.Both parties traded blame for the imminent expiration of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), also known as food stamps. The Department of Agriculture has announced that it does not have the money to continue providing the benefit after 1 November, though on Tuesday, more than two dozen states sued the Trump administration, arguing that funds are available for Snap benefits to continue.North Dakota senator Kevin Cramer said Democrats should either support a proposal from fellow Republican senator Josh Hawley to allow Snap to continue during the shutdown, “or they could just reopen the damn government, which is what they should be doing and should have been doing for the last month”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSouth Dakota senator Mike Rounds said the tax credits should be addressed by bipartisan action, but criticized the affordability of Affordable Care Act health plans. “The Obamacare product itself is fatally flawed. It continues to create a death spiral coming down with regard to the increasing costs. There are people out there, real people, that are going to get hurt because Obamacare is not working,” he said.In an interview, Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren signaled no change in the party’s strategy for the shutdown, which began at the start of the month after Congress failed to pass legislation to continue funding that expired at the end of September.“Millions of people across this country are receiving their health insurance premium notices, and telling Democrats and Republicans, lower those costs,” Warren said. “Democrats are in there fighting to lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans. Donald Trump would rather shut down the government than help out these families.”Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who has repeatedly broken with Trump as she faces what is expected to be a tough re-election contest next year, said she did not buy that the agriculture department lacked funding to continue Snap, but noted the money it had on hand was not enough to cover the program’s costs.However, Collins expressed concerns about the readiness of air traffic controllers, who did not receive a fully paycheck on Tuesday due to the shutdown. She noted that on two recent flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National airport, her plane had to divert at the last second.“I can’t help but think that reflects the strain on air traffic controllers,” she said. More

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      Agriculture secretary accused of unlawfully refusing to use emergency fund to prevent food stamp disruption – US politics live

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      Today brought more concern over food assistance for millions of Americans, as states filed an emergency lawsuit to prevent SNAP benefit cuts during the ongoing government shutdown.Donald Trump continued his Asia trip with stops in Japan and South Korea, while war secretary Pete Hegseth announced the killing of 14 people in strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels.Here’s what else happened today:

      More than two dozen states and Washington DC filed an emergency lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to prevent food stamp benefits from being cut off for roughly 42 million Americans starting 1 November. State officials asked a federal judge to force the agriculture department to tap emergency reserve funds.

      The Pentagon announced US forces killed 14 people onboard alleged drug-trafficking vessels in three separate military operations on 27 October. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth vowed suspected narcotics smugglers will face the same treatment as terrorist organizations, saying: “We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

      Donald Trump appealed his criminal conviction in his hush money case, with lawyers arguing the trial was “fatally marred” by evidence that should have been protected under the supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling.

      The Trump administration plans to revamp ICE leadership as it seeks to intensify mass deportation efforts, potentially replacing multiple field office directors with border patrol officials after falling well short of arrest targets.

      House Republicans’ oversight chair James Comer asked the justice department to investigate whether Joe Biden’s aides improperly used an autopen to sign executive actions, claiming Biden’s inner circle concealed his cognitive decline while exercising presidential authority without authorization.

      Trump is expected to offer China tariff cuts in exchange for a fentanyl crackdown when he meets with Xi Jinping on Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The US could halve the 20% levies on Chinese goods in return for Beijing restricting exports of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl.

      Trump confirmed he would meet with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang on Wednesday during his Asia trip, ahead of Huang’s attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in South Korea.

      Three US servicemembers connected to Wright-Patterson air force base in Ohio were found dead in a double-murder suicide over the weekend in what officials called a “tragic event” under investigation by state and military authorities.
      This blog has been paused for now, but may resume later today pending new developments.A federal judge in San Francisco has barred the Trump administration from continuing to terminate government employees during the shutdown, extending legal protections beyond a temporary order that was scheduled to expire this week.Judge Susan Illston’s preliminary injunction will remain in place throughout the legal challenge, indicating her belief the mass terminations across education, health and other departments will ultimately be proven unlawful.Three US servicemembers connected to Wright-Patterson air force base in Ohio were found dead in a double-murder suicide over the weekend that impacted multiple locations around Dayton, according to a statement from the Air Force materiel command’s deputy commander.Lieutenant general Linda Hurry said authorities are “committed to fully investigating this incident” but declined to share specific details as the Ohio bureau of criminal investigation, assisted by the Air Force office of special investigations, continues its probe into deaths occurring over a 12-hour period overnight between the 24 and 25 October.A government accountability organization has accused agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins of unlawfully refusing to tap a $5bn emergency fund that Congress specifically created to prevent food stamp disruptions during government shutdowns.The Democracy Defenders Fund sent a letter to Rollins arguing that the USDA is legally obliged to use the SNAP contingency fund to continue benefits for 42 million Americans, warning that the secretary’s failure to draw on available money represents “a deliberate decision to deny food” to vulnerable populations including the elderly, children and veterans.The halting of SNAP benefits will devastate merchants across the country who accept food stamps, including about 26,600 grocers and farmers’ markets in California alone, 17,000 in New York, and 10,600 in Pennsylvania, according to the states’ legal filing.And with Thanksgiving a few weeks away, the filing argues that many retailers have already purchased increased inventory to meet expected demand, but without SNAP funds flowing to recipients, businesses face significant revenue losses and food waste just as families would ordinarily be preparing for the holiday.The sudden loss of food assistance for 42 million Americans is expected to trigger a cascade of healthcare costs as food insecurity drives increased emergency room visits and hospitalizations, according to the lawsuit.One example state officials point to is Connecticut, which anticipates that the abrupt termination of SNAP benefits will create downstream effects on safety net programs like Medicaid, which partially depend on state funding to cover healthcare costs for vulnerable populations.About one in eight people in the United States are on food stamps, which average around $187 a month and cost the federal government about $8bn monthly, making the potential November cutoff a crisis affecting tens of millions of households.The Trump administration declined to extend a reprieve for Snap benefits, despite the agriculture department acknowledging weeks ago that it could reprogram emergency reserve money to prevent benefit cuts – a move supported by both congressional democrats and republicans.More than two dozen states and Washington DC have filed an emergency lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to prevent food stamp benefits from being cut off for roughly 42 million Americans during the ongoing government shutdown.State officials from Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Michigan and other states asked a federal judge to force Washington to tap emergency reserve funds so that families receiving assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would not see their benefits interrupted starting 1 November.Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will likely discuss a trade framework that would see the US slash tariffs on Chinese goods in return for Beijing’s commitment to restrict exports of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl, according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal.The report said the US could halve the 20% levies imposed on Chinese products as retaliation for fentanyl precursor exports, with details to be negotiated following Thursday’s meeting between the two leaders during Trump’s Asia trip.Every morning, Alicia Mercado makes the 50-minute drive from her home in Columbus to Springfield, where she runs the Adasa Latin Market store. She opened the business next to a Haitian restaurant in 2023, having spotted a gap in the market for Caribbean and Latin foods – the neighborhood’s Haitian population was booming at the time.But over the past year, she says her business, which includes an international money transfer kiosk, has taken a major hit.“About 80 to 90% of our customers were Haitians; now that’s down to about 60% over the past six months,” she says. “No more people are moving to Springfield.”Mercado’s experiences are being echoed around the city of 58,000 people that garnered international attention last year when Donald Trump falsely claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants were eating people’s pets.Until the end of last year, Springfield was something of a surprise economic juggernaut. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that it ranked second among all Ohio cities for job growth since the pandemic. New housing projects, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are among the biggest investments the city has ever made.That growth was partly fueled by the availability of manufacturing and blue-collar jobs that were eagerly filled by the more than 15,000 Haitian immigrants who had moved to the city over the past eight years, fueling businesses such as Mercado’s.Local companies got cheap, reliable labor, while Haitian workers received stable income, health insurance and a safe place to live. Many bought homes and invested their hard-earned income into improving the city’s housing stock that, in turn, padded the city’s tax coffers. For the most part, it was a win for all involved.But since then, the city’s economic fortunes have spiraled.For the full story, click here:Donald Trump has appealed his criminal conviction in his hush money case, with his lawyers arguing that the trial was “fatally marred” by evidence that should have been protected under the supreme court’s 2024 ruling on presidential immunity.In a court filing on Monday night, his lawyers accused Manhattan’s district attorney Alvin Bragg of being politically motivated to prosecute Trump.“Targeting alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law, the DA concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory, which the DA then improperly obscured until the charge conference. This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his lawyers said.The appeal comes 17 months after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to payments he made to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Those payments reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, intended to keep her from speaking publicly about an alleged sexual affair with Trump.The Trump administration is planning to revamp the leadership of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to reports, as the government seeks to intensify its mass deportation efforts.Multiple news outlets have reported that the government intends to reassign multiple directors of ICE field offices in the coming days, potentially replacing them with border patrol officials.It comes as the government is falling well short of its targets on immigration. Earlier this year, Stephen Miller – Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff – set ICE a target of arresting 3,000 people every day. But as of late September, the agency on average was arresting 1,178 daily, NBC reported.The New York Times reported that the proposed changes stem from the White House becoming frustrated at the pace of deportations, which now lags behind Trump’s goal of removing 1 million immigrants in his first year in office.For the full story, click here:Donald Trump will reportedly meet the presidents of five Central Asian nations next week in what marks a rare high-level gathering focused on the resource-rich former Soviet republics, a source familiar with the plans tells Reuters.Should the 6 November meeting happen, it will bring together the leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.The justification for the strikes has been widely disputed by legal experts. For one, when the US killed al-Qaida members, Congress had authorized the use of force. In targeting drug cartel members, the administration has relied on Trump’s article II powers to defend the US against an imminent threat.The latest boat strikes come as the US appears destined to start hitting land-based targets in the coming weeks, after the Pentagon sent its most advanced aircraft carrier and its strike group to the Caribbean – a major escalation in the Trump administration’s stated war against drug cartels.The move is expected bring the USS Gerald Ford, with its dozens of fighter jets, and its accompanying destroyers, to the coast of Venezuela by roughly the end of the week, according to a person familiar with the matter.Sending the carrier strike group to the Caribbean is the clearest sign to date that the administration intends to dramatically expand the scope of its lethal military campaign from hitting small boats alleged to be carrying drugs bound for the US to targets on land.Read more from my colleague Hugo Lowell here.A far-right Republican legislator has urged federal authorities to investigate whether Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate, committed naturalization fraud by allegedly failing to disclose his Democratic Socialists of America affiliation and political views when becoming a US citizen.The latest freak-out over Mamdani’s possible ascension to mayoralty comes from Andy Ogles, the Tennessee congressperson who claims in a letter to attorney general Pam Bondi that Mamdani “praised terrorists” and held views that “openly despised the US constitution” in 2017, and argues such positions should have been revealed during the citizenship process.“If we deport Mamdani for breaking REAL laws, we can save NYC and take back our country from the Marxists who want to reduce America to a third-world wasteland,” he wrote on X.Mike Johnson, while talking to reporters, said the pardons made by Joe Biden are “invalid on their face”.“I used to be a constitutional lawyer,” the House speaker added. “I would love to take this case, go into the court and make that law to set the precedent”.The Monday strikes hit four boats in three waves in the eastern Pacific ocean, Hegseth said. There were 14 confirmed killed, and one survivor, who was taken by Mexican search and rescue teams.Prior to the missiles on Monday, US forces have carried out at least eight strikes against boats off the Caribbean over the last few weeks, killing 40 people.Pete Hegseth, the Trump administration’s defence secretary, announced on social media that US forces killed 14 people onboard alleged drug-trafficking vessels in three separate military operations on 27 October, and vowed that suspected narcotics smugglers will face the same treatment as terrorist organizations.“These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same,” Hegseth wrote Tuesday morning, adding: “We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”There was one survivor. Hegseth said the strikes came at the direction of the Donald Trump.The GOP-led committee also released a staff report based on a 14-witness deposition alleging Biden’s advisors orchestrated a cover-up involving scripted appearances and restricted media access.It claims that senior strategist Mike Donilon and other key advisors “stood to gain financially and politically” from maintaining Biden’s candidacy while suppressing evidence of his decline.Three aides, including Biden’s physician Kevin O’Connor, invoked fifth amendment protections during the probe. More

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      Two dozen states sue White House over food stamps suspension amid shutdown

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      A coalition of more than two dozen states on Tuesday sued the Trump administration over its decision to suspend food stamps during the government shutdown.The lawsuit, co-led by New York, California and Massachusetts, asks a federal judge to force the US Department of Agriculture to tap into emergency reserve funds to distribute food benefits to the nearly 42 million families and children who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap). The USDA has said no benefits will be issued on 1 November.“Snap is one of our nation’s most effective tools to fight hunger, and the USDA has the money to keep it running,” the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “There is no excuse for this administration to abandon families who rely on Snap, or food stamps, as a lifeline. The federal government must do its job to protect families.”The Democratic attorneys general and three governors argue in their lawsuit that the federal government is obliged by law to maintain food benefits to the low-income households who rely on the program. They ask for a ruling by Friday on their motion.Snap is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program, according to the USDA, serving roughly one in eight low-income Americans at a cost of approximately $8bn per month. The USDA’s contingency fund is estimated to contain approximately $6bn.The expiration of Snap benefits has emerged as a major pressure point in the shutdown standoff between Democrats and Republicans. Across the country, food banks and pantries, already struggling under the sharp cuts to federal programs, were bracing for a surge of hungry people if federal food aid is paused, as state officials scrambled to keep assistance flowing to recipients.Many congressional Democrats and Republicans had called on the Trump administration to use the reserve funding to prevent widespread hunger and financial hardship on millions of American families, but it has so far declined.“Snap benefits are about to end on Saturday,” the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said on Fox News. “We don’t have the funding to cover them.”The USDA’s food and nutrition homepage has a banner with a strikingly partisan message falsely accusing Senate Democrats of shutting down the government to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants and trans Americans. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”“Despite having the money to fund Snap, the Trump administration is creating needless fear, angst, and harm for millions of families and their children especially as we approach the holidays,” the Massachusetts attorney general, Andrea Joy Campbell, said in a statement. “It is past time for the Trump administration to act to help, rather than harm, those who rely on our government.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe plaintiffs cite a memo from the agriculture department stating that contingency funds were “not legally available to cover regular benefits” during the government shutdown, which the document blamed on Democrats. The agency said it was only able to tap into the reserve funds under certain circumstances, such as natural disasters.The memo appears to contradict the department’s lapsed funding plan, released in late September, which stated that Congress’s “evident” intent was for Snap operations to continue during a government shutdown and pointed to “multi-year contingency funds” that could be tapped in the event the closures dragged on. The plan has been removed from the department’s website.“USDA not only has authority to use contingency funds, it has a legal duty to spend all available dollars to fund Snap benefits,” said California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, adding: “We are taking a stand because families will experience hunger and malnutrition if the Trump administration gets its way.” More