Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is forgoing a promised court-martialing and taking a behind-closed-doors track to attempt to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
The administrative move — which seeks to reduce Kelly's retirement rank and military pension — is the latest in the bitter back-and-forth between the Trump administration and the retired Navy captain after he joined five other Democratic lawmakers in a November video reminding service members that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.
While Hegseth is taking Kelly into uncharted legal waters, using an action typically meant to scrutinize service members' active-duty conduct, a Pentagon packed with President Trump loyalists could unfairly tip the scales against the Arizona Democrat, according to military law experts. |
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Minnesota has found itself at the epicenter of the political world, reeling from tensions sparked by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shooting a woman — an incident that renewed fierce debate over immigration, law enforcement and federal overreach.
At the same time, the state's headlines were also dominated by a political bombshell: That Gov. Tim Walz (D), ensnared in a deepening fraud scandal that has shaken public trust in the state's government, would not seek reelection for a third term.
The Trump administration is firmly entrenched in both stories, as it has aggressively criticized Walz over the fraud controversy and policing, while Democrats inside and outside Minnesota have expressed outrage over aggressive ICE operations. |
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President Trump's return to office has fueled the grassroots forces that have driven a spike in LGBTQ book bans in recent years, creating a notable chill in the market for queer stories, according to authors and others in the publishing industry.
The effect has been most keenly felt within children's book publishing, where editors and authors describe lower sales numbers amid book bans, as well as the administration's targeting of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and pre-occupation with "radical indoctrination" in K-12 schools.
"This is the first year in like a decade that I've had [rejection] responses from editors specifically citing that it's difficult to place queer books in stores, and they're being selective about acquiring queer stories," said Rebecca Podos, a senior literary agent at Neighborhood Literary and young adult and adult novelist. |
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BY MIKE LILLIS AND REBECCA BEITSCH |
The growing uproar over Wednesday's fatal shooting by a U.S. immigration officer in Minneapolis is spreading quickly on Capitol Hill, where a chorus of Democrats in both chambers are launching a blitz of proposals to rein in President Trump's surge of federal forces in blue regions around the country.
Democrats are pushing a wide range of responses, including efforts to suspend all Minnesota operations of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately; end qualified immunity for ICE officers more broadly; and call Kristi Noem, the head of the Homeland Security Department (DHS), to testify before Congress. Still others want to go a long step further and impeach Noem, who has characterized the victim of the shooting, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good, as a domestic terrorist who sought to harm federal law enforcers in Minneapolis. |
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The U.S. military on Saturday carried out "large-scale" strikes against ISIS militants in Syria, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced.
CENTCOM forces worked with partners in the region to carry out the strikes. "The strikes today targeted ISIS throughout Syria as part of our ongoing commitment to root out Islamic terrorism against our warfighters, prevent future attacks, and protect American and partner forces in the region. U.S. and coalition forces remain resolute in pursuing terrorists who seek to harm the United States," CENTCOM wrote in a statement posted on the social platform X. |
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The Norwegian Nobel Institute on Friday clarified the rules regarding the Nobel Prize amid recent suggestions by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado that she would share her award with President Trump.
The prize cannot be "revoked, shared, or transferred to others" once announced, the institute said in a statement. "The decision is final and stands for all time," the statement concluded. |
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Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Saturday said signaled security would be a "red line" amid the outbreak of protests and demonstrations across Tehran.
The protests come in the wake of soaring inflation that turned political with people in the streets calling for the toppling of the regime. Some have ventured to damage public property, including a municipal building in Karaj, which was set on fire, according to Reuters, citing state TV. The developments come as the government has shut off internet access and phone lines to prevent further grievances from airing online. |
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Three Minnesota Democratic congresswomen said that they were denied access to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.
In an interview with MS NOW after the incident, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said she and Reps. Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison were initially permitted to enter the building before being told they were not permitted to tour the facility. "It looked like it might have been an order that maybe came from Washington to deny us the proper access that we needed to complete those duties that we are obligated as members of Congress," Omar said.
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President Trump on Saturday said he hopes political prisoners released in Venezuela "remember how lucky they got" in the week after U.S. strikes ousted President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U.S. to face charges.
"Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done. I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them." Families gathered on Saturday outside prisons in Caracas and other communities for a third consecutive day, waiting for their relatives to be released. Human rights group Foro Penal said 11 people have been released so far. |
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OPINION | The White House is speaking loudly about Greenland. But volume should not be mistaken for madness. This isn't a sudden lapse into imperial fantasy — it is power politics, plain and unsentimental, dressed in modern language but driven by old truths.
Geography still governs fate. Distance can still protect or imperils nations. Ice still melts, routes still open, and rivals still move. Greenland sits at the center of it all — a vast slab of territory that dominates the map not by population, but by consequence. |
OPINION | Even a cursory examination by those with an open mind to this week's ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis; the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah; the attack on an ICE facility in Dallas; and the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pa., will reveal the underlying cause: purposeful, hate-filled rage, brought about by months and years of false and dehumanizing rhetorical smears.
To be sure, what just transpired in Minneapolis is a tragedy, and on multiple levels. A human being who was a mother, a partner and a daughter was killed. It is beyond heartbreaking for all of those who loved and cared about her. But it has also been reported that this woman may have been part of an "Anti-ICE" organization that trained participants to harass and block federal law enforcement officers. If true, what drove her to such a group? And, more importantly, could this particular tragedy have been avoided? |
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BY MATTHIAS SCHWARTZ & EMMA SCHARTZ |
President Trump has found a powerful but obscure bulwark in the appeals court judges he appointed during his first term. They have voted overwhelmingly in his favor when his administration's actions have been challenged in court in his current term, a New York Times analysis of their 2025 records shows.
Time and again, appellate judges chosen by Mr. Trump in his first term reversed rulings made by district court judges in his second, clearing the way for his policies and gradually eroding a perception early last year that the legal system was thwarting his efforts to amass presidential power. |
Call it the "Donroe trade."
After the brazen capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, investors are racing to capitalize on President Trump's ambitions to dominate the Western Hemisphere.
Hedge funds and other investment firms, already boosted by a sharp rally in Venezuelan debt, are mapping out trips to Caracas to scope out on-the-ground opportunities. Some are investigating niche instruments, like arbitration claims and unpaid state debts. |
Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. |
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch surprised many in 2020 when he wrote one of the Supreme Court's most consequential rulings expanding legal rights for gay and transgender people.
The 6-3 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County held that the ban on sex discrimination in a core federal civil rights law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, covers discrimination against gay and transgender people. |
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