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      US judge hears if Trump team broke law during LA Ice protests

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      A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday began hearing evidence and arguments on whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed national guard soldiers and US marines to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids this summer.The Trump administration federalized California national guard members and sent them to the second-largest US city over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and city leaders, after protests erupted on 7 June when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers arrested people at multiple locations.California is asking Judge Charles Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using military troops in California “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law or any civilian law enforcement functions by any federal agent or officer”.“The factual question which the court must address is whether the military was used to enforce domestic law, and if so, whether there continues to be a threat that it could be done again,” Breyer said at the start of Monday’s court hearing.The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force. The case could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states.Trump’s decision to deploy the troops marked the first time in 60 years that a US president had taken such a step without a governor’s consent. Critics say that Trump’s actions in many ways reflect a strongman approach by a president who has continuously tread upon norms and has had a disregard for institutional limits.“This is the first, perhaps, of many,” Trump said in June of the deployment of national guardsmen in Los Angeles. “You know, if we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country, but I can inform the rest of the country, that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force.”Many of the troops have been withdrawn, but Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said on Sunday that 300 national guard troops remain in the state. The Trump administration last week extended the activation of troops in the LA area through 6 November, according to a court filing by Newsom.“The federal government deployed military troops to the streets of Los Angeles for the purposes of political theater and public intimidation,” Bonta said in a statement. “This dangerous move has no precedent in American history.”The hearing comes the same day Trump placed the DC Metropolitan police department under federal control and deployed the national guard by invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said national guard units would take to the streets of DC over the coming week.The Department of Defense ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 California national guard troops and 700 marines. Most of the troops have since left but 250 national guard members remain, according to the latest figures provided by the Pentagon. The remaining troops are at the Joint Forces training base in Los Alamitos, according to Newsom.Newsom won an early victory from Breyer, who found the Trump administration had violated the 10th amendment, which defines power between federal and state governments, and exceeded its authority.The Trump administration immediately filed an appeal arguing that courts cannot second guess the president’s decisions and secured a temporary halt from the appeals court, allowing control of the California national guard to stay in federal hands as the lawsuit continues to unfold.After their deployment, the soldiers accompanied federal immigration officers on immigration raids in Los Angeles and at two marijuana farm sites in Ventura county while marines mostly stood guard around a federal building in downtown Los Angeles that includes a detention center at the core of protests.The Trump administration argued the troops were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel in Los Angeles, which has been a battleground in the federal government’s aggressive immigration strategy. Since June, federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the US from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and farms. Some US citizens have also been detained.Ernesto Santacruz Jr, the field office director for the Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles, said in court documents that the troops were needed because local law enforcement had been slow to respond when a crowd gathered outside the federal building to protest against the 7 June immigration arrests.“The presence of the national guard and marines has played an essential role in protecting federal property and personnel from the violent mobs,” Santacruz said.After opposition from the Trump administration, Breyer issued an order allowing California’s attorneys to take Santacruz’s deposition. They also took a declaration from a military official on the national guard and marines role in Los Angeles.The Trump administration’s attorneys argued in court filings last week the case should be canceled because the claims under the Posse Comitatus Act “fail as a matter of law”. They argued that there is a law that gives the president the authority to call on the national guard to enforce US laws when federal law enforcement is not enough.Trump federalized members of the California national guard under Section 12406 of Title 10, which allows the president to call the national guard into federal service when the country “is invaded”, when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government” or when the president is otherwise unable “to execute the laws of the United States”.Breyer found the protests in Los Angeles “fall far short of ‘rebellion”.“Next week’s trial is not cancelled,” he said in a ruling ordering the three-day, non-jury trial.During the month the protests took place, tensions heightened between Trump and Newsom. The California governor compared the president with failed dictators and Trump entertained the idea of having Newsom arrested. More

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      Judge rejects Trump administration request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury transcripts

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      Dismissing it as little more than a “diversion,” a federal judge in New York has formally rejected the Trump-led US justice department’s request to release transcripts of pre-indictment, grand jury interviews with witnesses in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that the transcripts could not be released publicly – “casually or promiscuously” – as Donald Trump’s government had pushed for because it would risk “unraveling the foundations of secrecy upon which the grand jury is premised”.Nonetheless, while Engelmayer said that releasing the transcripts would jeopardize the confidence of people called to testify before grand juries, he also made it a point to write that the transcripts were “redundant of the evidence at Maxwell’s trial”.Engelmayer also said that the government did not identify information of consequence in the record that was not already public in its request to release the Maxwell case’s grand jury testimony.That observation raises questions about whether the Trump administration meant to substantially address the bipartisan calls for transparency in Epstein’s case through its move for the transcripts’ release.And Engelmayer sought to answer those questions in his ruling.“A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion – aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,” he wrote.“Contrary to the government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest,” he added. “Far from it. It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents.”Brad Edwards, a Florida lawyer who has represented nearly two dozen Epstein accusers, told the Associated Press that he did not disagree with the the Engelmayer’s ruling Monday.“Our only concern was that if materials were released, then maximum protection for the victims was essential,” he said. “The grand jury materials contain very little in the way of evidentiary value anyway.”Trump’s administration had requested the release of grand jury transcripts in July amid intense political heat around the investigation of Epstein – the late financier and convicted pedophile – and his co-conspirator Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence.Members of the president’s Republican party joined the calls for his administration to resolve questions about the scandal, some of which center on him.Maxwell recently was interviewed by the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, and soon after was moved from a prison in Florida to a lower security prison in Texas, prompting accusations that a cover-up of evidence linking Epstein to Trump was in progress.An attorney for Maxwell says she spoke truthfully to Blanche. The lead prosecutor in the 2022 case against Maxwell, Maurene Comey, was dismissed from the southern district of New York federal prosecutor’s office before the interview took place.The request to unseal the testimony has been seen as an incremental measure: the government has acknowledged they contain no testimony from witnesses who weren’t members of law enforcement.But thousands of other documents and electronic files are in the government’s possession. In early July, the US justice department and FBI released a memo stating they found no evidence of an Epstein “client list” or blackmail – and that no further materials would be released to protect victims.Yet the fight over Epstein-Maxwell grand jury testimony is not complete. A federal judge in Florida is looking at releasing transcripts from the grand jury testimony that led to an earlier federal indictment against Epstein – from 2006 – that was later shelved.To resolve that case, Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state charges of soliciting minors and entered into a non-prosecution agreement to protect himself and four named others from future prosecution. Maxwell has appealed her conviction to the US supreme court, claiming she should have been shielded under that earlier agreement.But a number of avenues remain open. The Republican-led House oversight committee has subpoenaed the justice department and issued subpoenas to Bill Clinton, ex-secretary of state and Hillary Clinton – whom Trump defeated in 2016 to secure his first presidency – and eight former top law enforcement officials to appear before the committee in the fall. More

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      John Oliver on Ice’s crackdown: ‘Trying to drive up arrests at all costs’

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      John Oliver took a hard look at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on the latest Last Week Tonight, as more and more videos of Ice raids across US cities continue to show a brutal crackdown on undocumented people. “For all the administration’s talk of targeting dangerous criminals, the reality is very different,” Oliver started.The Trump administration has set a goal of deporting one million people a year, “which, it’s worth noting, would be more than double the previous record of 400,000 when Obama was president, which was already very high”, said Oliver. “But notably, they don’t seem to be getting near their target numbers.” As of taping, the administration had deported about 280,000 people, “so getting to a million in just six months seems very unlikely”.“And they have backed themselves into this corner, because ‘promising’ to deport a million criminal migrants is one thing, but once you’re in charge, you then have to find that many of them,” he continued, “which is going to be hard if they don’t exist in the numbers that you’re claiming, which they don’t.“It’s like promising to apprehend 10,000 Fred Dursts a day,” he added. “There just aren’t that many out there, so either you have to admit that your target number was bullshit in the first place or you have to drastically widen your definition of what a Fred Durst is until you’re eventually arresting any gen X-er wearing a hat.“But instead of conceding their numbers were inflated, the administration is trying to drive up arrests at all costs.” The Trump aide Stephen Miller has instructed Ice agents to target Home Depots and 7-Elevens, and the agency has rapidly deputized a record number of local police to function as deportation agents. They have brought in border patrol as well as the national guard; at least a quarter of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s workforce; 80% of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and even members of the US Postal Service.“This mass reallocation of resources means that other crimes are going less policed,” Oliver explained. The FBI, for example, has instructed agents to prioritize immigration enforcement at the expense of white-collar crime and investigations into sexual abuse.“I gotta say: for a guy who pandered so heavily to people convinced pedophiles, sex offenders and traffickers had infiltrated our government, Trump’s sure making the government a lot friendlier to them,” said Oliver. “Ghislaine Maxwell’s in a nicer cell now, Lawrence Taylor’s advising on kids’ physical fitness. Fuck it, at this point, if he’s willing to wear a Maga hat, I really don’t see why Roman Polanski can’t come back.”Nevertheless, “border czar” Tom Homan claimed that 70% of those arrested by Ice were criminals, while the other 30% were national security threats who “don’t have a criminal history because they try to lay low until it’s time for them to do things bad”.“Under his logic, I guess anyone could be a national security threat,” said Oliver. But “Homan’s numbers are also nowhere near Ice’s own data,” which found that only 40% of those arrested had any criminal history, including traffic infractions, and just 7% were convicted of any sort of violent crime. In fact, as of June, people with only civil or immigration violations – no criminal convictions – made up the largest percentage of arrests nationwide. “Maybe the clearest sign that this is more about pushing up numbers than catching violent criminals on the run is that one of the key places where they’re now fishing for arrests is immigration court, where people show up for their hearings,” he added.As numerous videos showed, Ice agents arrested people who showed up to process their situation legally, using a loophole that allows the government to deport people without due process if their immigration case is dismissed. “It is the laziest possible way to juice up your numbers,” said Oliver, “because you’re targeting people who are going through the system ‘in the right way’ and turning them into people you can immediately arrest and deport.”This trap was among “things the administration is doing that sure feel like they’re breaking the law” but “often aren’t”. Oliver took the “dystopian visual” of Ice agents wearing masks, which is actually legal, as no federal law prevents it. “So they can do it, but why are they?” The administration claims that it’s for their own protection, with the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, including videotaping arrests as an act of “violence” against agents.All of this “gets even more worrying” when one remembers that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains a huge surge of funding for immigration enforcement – roughly $170bn over the next few years, some of which is set aside for the hiring of 10,000 new Ice agents. “For what it’s worth, massive rapid hiring sprees never tend to work out well,” Oliver noted. Past efforts to bolster Customs and Border Protection under George Bush ended up with hiring drug cartel members and an actual serial killer. “And it’s not a great sign for who Ice is appealing to that they’re currently posting gross recruitment ads, like this fake minivan ad tagged: ‘Think about how many criminal illegal aliens you could fit in this bad boy!’” he added. “And they seem more than a little desperate already, as they’ve already removed age limits for hiring agents.”And this past week, Ice shared a video of their newest recruit: former Superman actor Dean Cain. “You know, there’s an old saying in Hollywood: ‘If all you can get is Dean Cain, you are fucked,’” Oliver joked.“Now, I’m not saying that Ice isn’t finding people,” he continued. “I’m just saying, when you are reduced to pinning a badge on the 59-year-old star of The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, The Dog Who Saved the Holidays, The Dog Who Saved Halloween, The Dog Who Saved Easter and The Dog Who Saved Summer, maybe you are in trouble. Although, on the plus side, no need for that guy to wear a mask because the chances of anyone recognizing him are fucking zero.”So what can be done? “As powerless as this can feel, as individuals there are still actions you can take,” said Oliver, such as recording any arrest you witness involving Ice agents. Oliver also advised that if you’re approached by Ice agents, whether or not you’re a citizen, “attorneys told us the only two things you should say to them are: ‘Am I free to leave?’ And: ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’ That’s it. You have the right to remain silent. And I recognize that in some cases you may be unable to help yourself from saying: ‘Didn’t you used to be Superman?’ ‘I thought you died.’ ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting a film-maker.’ But that really is it.”“We are still in a very grim moment,” he added. “The rightwing narrative is that most people are rabid to punish anyone who wants to become new Americans. But that is just not true,” as new polls found 80% support a pathway to legal citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “Nor are their bullshit claims about who’s being targeted and arrested.“And I’m not saying that everything Ice is doing right now is illegal,” he concluded. “What I’m saying is, a whole bunch of it feels like it really should be. And we need to change that at our earliest opportunity.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Epstein case haunts administration even as Vance blames Democrats for mishandling

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      Vice-president JD Vance’s attempt to deflect attention away from the Trump administration’s handling of the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has backfired, triggering renewed calls for transparency.In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Vance tried to brush off criticism of the administration’s refusal to release documents related to the scandal, accusing Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about it when he was in the White House.Within minutes of the Fox News interview being broadcast, social media began to hum with renewed cries of “release the files!”The White House has been caught in a bind over the Epstein affair, which spawned conspiracy theories among many of Donald Trump’s supporters which now senior figures in the administration had actively encouraged during the 2024 campaign.Here are the key US politics stories at a glance:Vance’s attempt to link Democrats to Epstein renews calls to ‘release the files’Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the vice-president appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.Read the full storyNvidia and AMD reportedly agree to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to USNvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an unprecedented arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.Read the full storyTexas redistricting fight ‘could last years’, threatens Greg AbbottThe Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.Read the full storyCourt overrides Trump officials’ rollback and blocks fishing in Pacific Islands monumentA federal judge in Hawaii has ruled that commercial fishing is illegal in the Pacific Islands Heritage marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean.Read the full storyTrump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DCIn a social media post on Sunday, the president demanded homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.Read the full storyCompanies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenuesThe technology, surveillance and private prison providers arming Trump’s massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Ahead of the a meeting between president Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin scheduled for Friday, our correspondent Shaun Walker has written this analysis about how confusion over the summit shows Putin still calls the shots.

      Trump’s second term has seen a sustained assault on democratic institutions – political, judicial, media, cultural and academic – that appears to be only accelerating, writes David Smith in this feature.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 9 August 2025. More

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      Nvidia and AMD reportedly agree to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US

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      Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an unprecedented arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.The revenue share applies to Nvidia’s H20 chips and AMD’s MI308 chips, the report said, citing a US official, noting that the Trump administration had yet to determine how to use the money.The chipmakers agreed to the quid pro quo arrangement as a condition for obtaining export licenses for the Chinese market that were granted last week, according to the unnamed official.According to export control experts, no US company has ever agreed to pay a portion of their revenues to obtain export licenses, the newspaper reported. But Donald Trump has encouraged firms, and countries, to make investments in the US to, in his words, “buy down” the tariff rates he imposes.Nvidia follows rules the US government sets for its participation in worldwide markets, an Nvidia spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement. “While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide.”AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The US commerce department started issuing licenses to Nvidia to export its H20 chips to China last week, removing a significant hurdle to the artificial intelligence bellwether’s access to a key market.The US in July reversed an April ban on the sale of the H20 chip to China. The company had tailored the microprocessor specially to the Chinese market to comply with the Biden-era AI chip export controls.Nvidia’s chips are a major driver of the AI boom, and in July the company became the first ever to have its market value surpass $4tn.Complications facing the company are not necessarily over, however, with growing scrutiny of Nvidia by Chinese authorities. Late last month China’s cyberspace watchdog summoned Nvidia to a meeting to discuss whether the chips had any “backdoor” security risks which would allow remote access or control. Nvidia said they did not.But Chinese state media has continued to raise concerns. In a commentary earlier this month, the People’s Daily said Nvidia must produce “convincing security proofs” to eliminate Chinese users’ worries over security risks in its chips and regain market trust. And On Sunday a state media account on Chinese social media platform WeChat said the H20 chips posed a security risk for China. The account, Yuyuan Tantian, claimed Nvidia chips could achieve functions including “remote shutdown” through a hardware “backdoor”. Nvidia has not responded.With Reuters More

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      JD Vance’s attempt to blame Democrats

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      Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, the vice-president tried to deflect criticism of the administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files by blaming Democrats. He accused Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about the scandal when he was in the White House.“And now President Trump has demanded full transparency from this. And yet somehow the Democrats are attacking him and not the Biden administration, which did nothing for four years,” he said. Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse multiple minor girls and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison during the Biden administration.If Vance’s attempt to switch public blame onto Democrats was the big idea to emerge from his strategy meeting with attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel, which according to CNN he convened at the White House last week, then their labours appear to have backfired. (Vance denied to Fox that they had discussed Epstein at all, though he did acknowledge the meeting took place.)Within minutes of the Fox News interview being broadcast, social media began to hum with renewed cries of “release the files!”Clips of Vanc smearing Democrats quickly began to circulate on X. “We know that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of connections with leftwing politicians and leftwing billionaires … Democrat billionaires and Democrat political leaders went to Epstein island all the time. Who knows what they did,” he said. Vance also repeated Trump’s previously debunked claim that Bill Clinton had visited Epstein’s private island dozens of times. Clinton has acknowledged using Epstein’s jet, but denied ever visiting his island.“Fine. Release all the files,” was the riposte from Bill Kristol, the prominent conservative Never Trumper who urged the documents to be made public with “no redactions of clients, enablers, and see-no-evil associates”.Jon Favreau, Barack Obama’s former head speechwriter, replied: “Release the names! Democrats, Republicans, billionaires, or not. What are you afraid of, JD Vance?”Favreau added that Trump’s name “is in the Epstein files”. That was an apparent reference to a report in the Wall Street Journal last month that a justice department review of the documents conducted under Bondi had found that the president’s name did appear “multiple times”.Other social media users used the Fox News interview as an excuse to re-run video of Trump in the hosting Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago.Epstein died in August 2019, during Trump’s first presidency, while the financier and socialite was awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail; the death was ruled a suicide.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House has been caught in a bind over the Epstein affair which spawned conspiracy theories among many of Trump’s supporters, which now senior figures in the administration had actively encouraged during the 2024 campaign.In July the justice department announced that there was no Epstein client list and that no more files would be made public, a decision that clashed with earlier statements from top Trump officials, including Bondi’s statement in February that a client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”. The decision triggered an immediate and ongoing uproar that crossed the partisan political divide.Among the most viral clips in the aftermath of that reversal was video of Vance himself telling the podcaster Theo Von, two weeks before the election: “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list, that is an important thing.”In his Fox News interview Vance also warned that “you’re going to see a lot of people get indicted” after Trump accused Obama of “treason” and called for his predecessor to be prosecuted.The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has passed documents to the justice department that she claims show that the Obama administration maliciously tried to hurt Trump by linking Russian interference in the 2016 election to him.Obama has dismissed Trump’s call for his prosecution as weak and ridiculous. More

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      Court overrides Trump officials’ rollback and blocks fishing in Pacific Islands monument

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      A federal judge in Hawaii has ruled that commercial fishing is illegal in the Pacific Islands Heritage marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean.The decision from judge Micah WJ Smith overturns an April letter released by the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) – also known as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) Fisheries – that allowed fishing in parts of the monument that Barack Obama had protected during his presidency. The letter came about a week after Donald Trump’s presidential proclamation to reverse fishing regulations across the national monument, a world heritage site that includes archeological treasures, marine mammals, seabirds and coral reefs.Regulations banning commercial fishing in the area remain in effect, according to Friday’s ruling. The court said “no commercial fishing operators may reasonably rely on” the April letter, meaning fishing in waters 50 to 200 nautical miles around Johnston Atoll, Jarvis Island, and Wake Island must halt immediately.“The Fisheries Service cannot ignore our perspectives as the native people who belong to the islands and to the ocean that surrounds us,” said Solomon Pili Kaho’ohalahala, founding member of the non-profit group Kāpaʻa, the Conservation Council for Hawaii and the Center for Biological Diversity. “The law guarantees a process where we can advocate for protecting the generations of our children’s children who are yet to be born.”The environmental conservation group Earthjustice, representing the non-profits in Hawaii, filed its lawsuit in May and argued NMFS violated federal law by bypassing the formal process for changing fishing rules, which requires public notice and comment.“The court forcefully rejected the Trump administration’s outrageous claim that it can dismantle vital protections for the monument’s unique and vulnerable species and ecosystems without involving the public,” Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said.Then president George W Bush created the marine monument in 2009. It consists of about 500,000 sq miles (1.3m sq km) in the remote central Pacific Ocean south-west of Hawaii. Obama expanded it in 2014.As part of his push to make the US the “world’s dominant seafood leader”, Trump called the regulations “so horrible and so stupid” – and claimed they force US fishers “to go and travel four to seven days to go and fish in an area that’s not as good”.The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is about 370,000 sq nautical miles (1,270,000 sq km), or nearly twice the size of the state of Texas. It is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Noaa and the defense department. The monument is home to one of the largest collections of deep ocean coral reef, seabird, and shorebird protected areas on the planet. It provides refuge for species threatened by the climate crisis and other stressors caused by humans.Kingman Reef, considered one of the most pristine coral reefs in US waters, is also part of the monument. Unesco reports it has the highest proportion of apex predators of any studied coral reef worldwide.Its waters are home to several shark species, including grey reef, oceanic whitetip, hammerhead and silky sharks, all of which play an important role in maintaining ecological balance.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlong with the ecological value, the islands and ocean areas in and adjacent to the monument hold great value to Indigenous Pacific Islanders and researchers. The lawsuit says allowing commercial fishing in the monument expansion would harm the “cultural, spiritual, religious, subsistence, educational, recreational, and aesthetic interests” of a group of Native Hawaiian plaintiffs who are connected genealogically to the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific.“This is a huge win for the Pacific’s irreplaceable marine life and for the rule of law,” Maxx Phillips, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said about Friday’s ruling. “These sacred and irreplaceable ecosystems are home to endangered species, deep-sea corals, and rich cultural heritage.”Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Trump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DC

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      In a social media post on Sunday, Donald Trump demands homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”View image in fullscreenThe post was illustrated with four photographs, all apparently taken from the president’s motorcade along the route from the White House to his golf course. Two of the images showed a total of 10 tents pitched on the grass along a highway on-ramp just over a mile from the White House. The third image showed a single person sleeping on the steps of the American Institute of Pharmacy Building on Constitution Avenue. The fourth image showed the line of vehicles that whisk Trump to his golf course passing a small amount of roadside litter on the E Street Expressway, near the Kennedy Center.Trump’s post promoted a previously announced news conference on Monday, which he has promised, “will, essentially, stop violent crime” in the capital district, without explaining how. In a subsequent post, he said that the news conference at 10am Monday, “will not only involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation’s Capital, but will also be about Cleanliness”.The Free DC movement, which advocates for self-determination, immediately scheduled a protest on Monday to coincide with Trump’s news conference.Despite Trump’s claims, there is no epidemic of homelessness or violent crime in the capital.According to the Community Partnership, which works to prevent homelessness in Washington DC, on any given night there are about 800 unsheltered persons sleeping outdoors in the city of about 700,000 people. A further 3,275 people use emergency shelters in Washington, and 1,065 people are in transitional housing facilities.Trump’s repeated claims that it might be necessary to federalize law enforcement in the city to make it safe also ignores data collected by the Metropolitan police department, released in January by the federal government, which showed that violent crime in Washington DC in 2024 was down 35% from 2023 and was at the lowest level in over 30 years.“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, told MSNBC on Sunday. “We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.” She added that Washington DC police statistics show that violent crime is down a further 26% so far this year.“Federal law enforcement is always on the street in DC, and we always work cooperatively with them” Bowser said, adding the the Washington DC national guard, which Trump has threatened to deploy, is under the control of the president.Earlier this week, Trump ordered a surge of federal officers from a variety of agencies to increase patrols in Washington DC, pointing to the assault on a young federal worker who came to Washington to work with Elon Musk as evidence that the city’s police force was failing to combat violent crime. Washington DC police, however, had stopped the assault Trump focused attention on, and arrested two 15-year-old suspects at the scene.Asked by Reuters, the White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from Washington. The president controls only federal land and buildings in the city.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US Congress has control of the city’s budget but the DC Home Rule Act, signed into law in 1973 by Richard Nixon, gives Washington DC residents the right to elect the mayor, council members, and neighborhood commissioners to run day-to-day affairs in the district.Trump told reporters on Wednesday that White House lawyers were “already studying” the possibility of legislation to overturn the law granting the Washington DC self-rule and imposing direct federal control of the capital.“Even if crime in D.C. weren’t at a historic low point, President Trump’s comments would be misguided and offensive to the more than 700,000 people who live permanently in the nation’s capital,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents DC as a nonvoting delegate in congress said in a statement. “D.C. residents, a majority of whom are Black and brown, are worthy and capable of governing themselves without interference from federal officials who are unaccountable to D.C.”“The only permanent remedy that will protect D.C.’s ability to govern itself is enactment of my D.C. statehood bill into law,” the 88-year-old congresswoman added.Reuters contributed reporting More