News

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522120541/https://www.kpbs.org/news/public-safety/2025/05/19/san-diegos-highest-paid-city-employees-cops-racking-up-overtime-and-earning-over-400-000

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522120511/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/19/oregon-addiction-spending

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522120645/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/a-gun-deemed-too-dangerous-for-cops-but-fine-for-civilians/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522115616/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/18/ice-tactic-deport-before-court-immigration/83515061007/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522115401/https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/05/18/utah-prosecutors-worry/

An Iowa sheriff is warning that his county may be publicly shamed by the Trump administration for insufficiently backing the president’s immigration agenda, though he says he is “more than happy” to help. He said he just wants to ensure he doesn’t end up with too few officers, jail beds and dollars to respond to the county’s needs.

Dubuque County Sheriff Joe Kennedy, who serves nearly 100,000 people in the area bordering Wisconsin and Illinois, seemed to try not to alienate the federal government when he declined to participate in a program that would commit county revenue and jail space to immigration enforcement. He explained his decision before a packed county chamber this week, drawing mixed reactions.

...

“It has generally been my experience that when we partner with larger entities (Federal, state), those agencies usually ‘take’ more than they ‘give.’ Essentially, we usually end up with the short end of the stick in some way,” he wrote.

Kennedy said he would be “more than happy to assist your agents in our area” but asked ICE not to rely on his 181-bed jail because he doesn’t have room.

David Bindert, an official in ICE’s Cedar Rapids, Iowa, office, was sympathetic in his brief response: “No worries Sir, I completely understand, and I thank you for your time in this matter.”

...

An Iowa law prohibits state and local officials from adopting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Attorney General Brenna Bird recently sued the Winneshiek County sheriff over a Facebook post that she said discouraged cooperation, potentially jeopardizing state funding to the county.

The Trump administration has also taken legal action against governments with policies limiting immigration arrests, suing Chicago, Denver and Rochester, New York.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522115734/https://apnews.com/article/iowa-dubuque-county-sheriff-trump-287g-immigration-d5c35a6dabbf54b00daf75130fa915d8

Archived at https://archive.is/BOb5k

Wendy Ortiz was surprised to find out she was being fined by U.S. immigration authorities for being in the country illegally — but it was the amount that truly shocked her: $1.8 million.

Ortiz, 32, who earns $13 an hour in her job at a meatpacking plant in Pennsylvania, has lived in the United States for a decade, after fleeing El Salvador to escape a violent ex-partner and gang threats, she said in an interview and in immigration paperwork. Her salary barely covers rent and expenses for her autistic 6-year-old U.S.-citizen son.

...

The Trump administration plan, details of which were first reported by Reuters in April, include levying fines of $998 per day for migrants who failed to leave the U.S. after a deportation order.

The administration planned to issue fines retroactively for up to five years, Reuters reported. Under that framework, the maximum would be $1.8 million. The government would then consider seizing the property of immigrants who could not pay.

It remains unclear exactly how the Trump administration would collect the fines and seize property.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522115629/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/4500-migrants-told-pay-fines-ranging-18-million-rcna207958

Head of strategy of Finnish defence forces says they are monitoring Moscow’s manoeuvring ‘very closely’

Archived at https://archive.is/VSm79

Johnathan Buma, who was arrested in March and is out on bail, claims in new interview that efforts to target Musk were ‘intense’_

A former FBI counterintelligence agent turned whistleblower has claimed he tried to gain access to Elon Musk in 2022 to warn the billionaire that he was the target of a covert Russian campaign seeking to infiltrate his inner circle, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.

Johnathan Buma, who was arrested by the FBI earlier this year on a misdemeanor charge of disclosing confidential information, said in an interview that he tried – but ultimately failed – to gain access to Musk to personally brief and “inoculate” him against “outreach from the Kremlin”.

Buma, who is on bail and living in Arizona after his 17 March arrest at New York’s Kennedy airport, spoke to both ZDF, the German broadcaster, and the Guardian. He has also recently filed paperwork to run as a Democratic candidate for a congressional House seat in Arizona.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522115709/https://slate.com/technology/2025/05/iceblock-app-ice-resistance-immigration-crackdown-deportations.html

Police said a suspect was in custody after the shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum

A suspect is in custody after shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff outside a Jewish museum in Washington on Wednesday night.

The gunman, named by police as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, approached a group of four people leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum and opened fire, killing Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.

Metropolitan police chief Pamela Smith said the shooter had been pacing outside the museum, which is steps away from the FBI’s field office, before the shooting.

After killing the pair, who officials said were a couple, he walked inside, where event security detained him. The suspect yelled: “Free, free Palestine,” after he was arrested, police said.

“I would not acknowledge reproduction as a human right, but instead as a form of rape,” IndictEvolution wrote on Lemmy.World in July 2023. “I am also not bothered by infanticide as long as it is done humanely...”

Archived at https://archive.is/krpmY

Related article with more details - https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com/p/judge-cites-public-interest-in-argument (arc)

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522120139/https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-05-19/nh-corrections-commissioner-resigns-without-explanation

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250522114947/https://www.npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1-5406392/trump-republicans-tax-bill-reconciliation-medicaid

Bulldozers and explosives are flattening Gaza from the ground — what soldiers say is a systematic campaign to make the Strip unlivable.

The judge’s order will allow the wrongful death lawsuit to proceed, in what legal experts say is among the latest constitutional tests of artificial intelligence.

The suit was filed by a mother from Florida, Megan Garcia, who alleges that her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III fell victim to a Character . AI chatbot that pulled him into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.

Meetali Jain of the Tech Justice Law Project, one of the attorneys for Garcia, said the judge’s order sends a message that Silicon Valley “needs to stop and think and impose guardrails before it launches products to market.”

The winding series of Senate procedural votes that went late into the evening could have profound implications for California’s longstanding efforts to reduce air pollution. It also established a new, narrow exception to the Senate filibuster even as Republicans have insisted that they won’t try to change Senate rules.

Democrats strongly objected to the move, delaying the votes for hours as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., cleared the way procedurally for Republicans to bring up three House-passed resolutions that would block the rules. The Senate could pass the resolutions later this week.

At issue are the three California rules — phasing out gas-powered cars, cutting tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and curbing smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks.

Noem announced the deaths in a post on X after the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, which is located steps away from the FBI’s field office in the nation’s capital.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said she was at the scene with former judge Jeanine Pirro, who serves as the U.S. attorney in Washington.