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by Molly Parker, Capitol News Illinois, Julia Rendleman for ProPublica and Lylee Gibbs, Saluki Local Reporting Lab This article was produced for ProPublicas Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. A portion of the reporting in Alexander County is supported by funding from the Pulitzer Center. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week. The seed tractor sank again, no surprise to Steve Williams. Everything sank out here on Dogtooth Bend in Southern Illinois since the floodwaters ran through five years earlier and dumped millions of tons of sand. The ground looked firm, but deep pockets of sticky mud lurked under the sun-cracked surface, pulling him under without warning.He hit the gas. His wheels spun in place; sand flew. A few cuss words, too.He called his daughter, Brandy Renshaw, working a nearby stretch of field in a giant green rig. She turned his way to pull him out; then she sank, too. Williams, in a faded plaid shirt, gray hair sprouting from under a John Deere hat, paced. Renshaw slammed the gearshift, rocked back and forth, and eventually clawed her way out.It was June 2024, and both father and daughter knew the land they were trying to farm wasnt going to yield much, even if they got the seeds in the ground. But this had become their routine: farming futile land just to keep from going under. For years now, theyd had one foot stuck in the mud, the other in government bureaucracy. Theyd get angry then laugh.What else could you do? said Williams, 70. We were left holding the bag. In these Mississippi River bottoms, federal farm policy became a trap. Farming is one of the most heavily subsidized industries in America. Each year, Congress allocates billions to keep crops in the ground, cushioning the blow from droughts, floods, fires and market swings a safety net that dates to the 1930s, when the Depression and Dust Bowl put the nations food supply at risk. But today, in some of the most flood- and drought-prone parts of the country, those programs can also keep people hanging on, even when it makes more sense to walk away. Thats increasingly clear along parts of the Mississippi River Valley and especially here in Alexander County, at the rural tip of Illinois. As the climate changes and as aging levees fail, the risk is becoming more predictable, the losses so frequent it is clear some land will no longer yield what it used to. But the federal programs that support those changes enacted first by President George H.W. Bush, then expanded by President Bill Clinton have been small, slow and ineffective. After the 2019 flood when the Mississippi River submerged the southernmost corner of Illinois for months, part of a widespread disaster across the Midwest Congress allocated only about $217 million spread across 11 states to pay farmers to voluntarily retire their flood-ravaged fields. Federal workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which ran the program, specifically urged farmers at Dogtooth Bend to sign up. The floods had come here repeatedly and had worsened since they busted through the 17-mile levee that protected Williams farmland three years earlier. So Williams signed up, along with about 30 others on Dogtooth Bend, finally ready to call mercy to the river. He offered up roughly 1,200 acres; the federal government offered to pay him about $3,200 an acre to put permanent easements on his land, which he could use for recreational purposes but never farm again. Renshaw, left, and her father, Steve Williams, finish a day of planting soybeans this spring. (Julia Rendleman) An aerial image from November shows the damage to the Len Small Levee in Alexander County, Illinois. Without the levee intact, water flows onto the farms it was meant to protect. (Julia Rendleman) At the time Williams applied, the program had been offered only one other time in the past decade to farmers along the Upper Mississippi River, despite billions in lost crops. And this time around, the pot just 1% of the $19 billion disaster aid package wasnt big enough to help everyone who applied, especially along this corn- and soy-growing region. And even for those who were accepted, the agency in charge couldnt keep up with the paperwork, making the process stretch on for years. The process dragged through the rest of President Donald Trumps first term and through most of President Joe Bidens. And now these programs look even less certain as Trump and Republicans in Congress double down on the status quo: expanding crop insurance and farm income supports through the budget bill signed into law on July 4 while in an effort to trim the federal workforce gutting the staff responsible for responding to climate disasters, including those who manage permanent easements that pull troubled farmland out of production.While farmers have struggled to access funds to help them get off flood-prone land, federal programs to keep their crops in the ground have long been the safer bet. Over the past three decades, Illinois has received $35 billion in farm support more than any state but Texas and Iowa mostly through insurance subsidies and price supports for growing corn and soybeans. Some of that bounty is grown on flood-prone ground along the Mississippi and other river bottoms.At some point in time, dont you ask yourself: Is this really economically the best way to spend our taxpayer dollars, said Dave Hiatt, an easement coordinator and biologist with the USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service, or would it serve us better in the long run if we spent money to take that ground out of production? Hiatt is among the USDA employees on paid leave through September as part of the Trump administrations plan to reduce the federal workforce.ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois reached out to the USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service on Aug. 15 with a detailed list of questions about how it handled the Dogtooth Bend easements across multiple administrations as well as its priorities going forward. The agency said it was working on a response but did not provide it in time for publication or specify a day when it would respond. While Williams waited for the buyout to go through, his bills didnt stop. He still owed a mortgage to the bank, taxes to the county. That left him and Renshaw with a choice: Either do nothing and watch their farm operation go under, or do what theyd always done. Even when it didnt make sense anymore, they had planted their fields to maintain their federally backed crop insurance. Keeping that crop insurance allowed them to access other agriculture subsidies and disaster aid. So they mounted their tractors and rolled out to their nearly barren fields. You cant afford to leave it, Renshaw said. So we planted what we could and insured everything we could. It was a nightmare. Renshaw posted on Instagram when her tractor was stuck in the mud in June 2024. (Screenshots by ProPublica) It hadnt always been like this. For decades, this Delta-like sliver of bottomland jutting into the Mississippi River at Illinois southern edge was the garden spot of the county, as Williams put it. He grew up farming alongside his dad and bought his first property on the peninsula in 1987.At that point, the land on the flood-prone bend was still protected by the Len Small Levee, built in 1943 and named for an Illinois governor. The water broke through the first time in 1993, then again in 2011. But everyone recognized its days were numbered, and the state and federal government started paying people for their homes and businesses so they could move from harms way. That mitigated the risk, but it also meant that after floodwaters cut a nearly mile-wide hole in 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to cover the $16 million repair cost: With fewer people living there, the cost-benefit formula showed it wasnt worth saving anymore. Williams and the other farmers were devastated: When the levee was in place, Dogtooth Bend stayed relatively dry even when the Mississippi climbed well past flood stage 33 feet at the nearby Thebes gauge. Since the breach, water spills into the peninsula every time the river nears that mark, and that happens often now, sometimes for weeks at a time. As hopes of a levee repair fizzled, farmers were stranded. The federal easement program receives only sporadic funding, and typically only after a presidential disaster declaration, which Illinois didnt get in 2016, despite widespread damage in Alexander County. Predictably, Dogtooth Bend flooded again in 2017 and 2018. Both years, from his office three hours away near Champaign, Hiatt and a small team of federal officials with the Natural Resources Conservation Service scrambled to come up with easement funds, even outside of a disaster declaration.We begged, we pleaded with headquarters, Hiatt said. We said, We need these funds right now. These people have been this poorly impacted. Flooding in Alexander County in 1993. The Len Small Levee breached for the first time that year, and again in 2011 and 2016. (Courtesy of The Southern) Federal records show that after floods in both years, Hiatt and his colleagues in Illinois proposed buying out up to 11,500 acres owned by 40 or so landowners on Dogtooth Bend over time, starting with the most severely damaged. The first phase would cost $20 million and was projected to prevent $60 million in near-term damages. The proposal laid out a strong case: Roads were threatened; habitat was disappearing; land was becoming more and more degraded. Thousands of acres had already become unfarmable and while the reports also weighed the option of restoring the land, they noted that the farmland would never be fully productive, and the costs to keep bailing out farmers would only grow. By this point, Trump had taken office for the first time, bringing in new USDA leadership. In both 2017 and 2018, Hiatt said, agency leadership in Washington rejected the requests by him and his colleagues in Illinois to help move farmers off the land. This wasnt unusual: According to one nonprofits report, over 25 years, 90% of landowners in the Upper Mississippi states who applied for funding were turned down. Environmental groups support paying farmers to leave flood-prone land because floodwater that spreads across farm fields washes fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals into rivers, causing a range of down-river harms. But theres an economic argument, too: A 2019 study in the science journal Nature Sustainability found that every $1 spent restoring floodplains by clearing them of development and farms can save at least $5 in future damages. Despite this, the single largest agriculture program in the farm bill is intended to keep people on the land. That comes in the form of crop insurance premiums, an average of 60% of which are paid by the federal government. In Alexander County, that is closer to 70%. More broadly, the costs of keeping people on their land there were spiraling upward: In addition to subsidies, there were millions more to clean up flood debris, shore up the levees, and fix roads and drainage systems. And still the floods kept coming. Yet farmers were still planting. They do the math, said Silvia Secchi, a farm policy expert at the University of Iowa, about why farmers might keep investing in troubled land. You and I would do the same math. If you want to stay in business, you do what makes you stay in business.For the father-daughter team of Williams and Renshaw, it was barely enough. All the insurance did was keep people from going broke, Williams said.You arent winning, Renshaw added, by any means.By the time the historic flood hit in 2019, the need to rescue the farmers at Dogtooth Bend was undeniable. A house in Tamms that belonged to Brandy Renshaws uncle takes on floodwater in 2019. (Courtesy of Brandy Renshaw) When the river finally pulled back, Williams no longer recognized the land hed spent his life working. The levee breach had let the full force of the Mississippi pour through Dogtooth Bend for five months. It carved new channels, dumped dunes of sand and even sucked six barges off the main river and left two stranded in a field. People compared the scene to Mars. To the windswept dunes of Lawrence of Arabia. To Williams, it was just a sickening feeling.Farmers in Alexander County claimed more than $7 million in crop insurance payouts that year the highest on record. Roads were so mangled they had to be fully rebuilt. Trash and driftwood littered the peninsula. The damage made the case for a buyout harder to ignore.If that case werent strong enough, the flood also put on display the benefits of letting the levee go. Although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision not to fix it had hurt the nearby farmers, allowing the water to spread out in Dogtooth Bend may have helped relieve pressure on the levee system across the river in Missouri and downriver.Williams and Renshaw had come to terms with what that meant. Their land had been sacrificed so others could be spared. When Williams signed up for the floodplain easement program in August 2019, he figured hed never farm Dogtooth Bend again. By that point, only about 200 of their 1,200 acres could still grow a crop. But do it right, Renshaw said. Instead, they fell into a broken system that left them farming nearly useless land while they waited five years for the federal government to complete their easement paperwork. Williams takes a call from Renshaw while he plants soybeans on his farm. (Julia Rendleman) A historic flood in 2019 broke through the Len Small Levee that protected Dogtooth Bend, sending six barges floating onto the land. Two remain in a field, seen here in November 2024. (Julia Rendleman) Piles of sand several feet deep remain on former farmland at Dogtooth Bend in May. (Julia Rendleman) Williams knew the government moved slowly, but his first years wait seemed absurd. By year two, hed nearly given up. By the summer of 2024, he was just plain disgusted. He checked in regularly with federal workers, calling the local officials he knew by name on their cellphones or popping into the local office in nearby Tamms. But the federal workers on the ground couldnt tell him much other than his paperwork was still in process, under review with a federal official somewhere in another state thousands of miles from Dogtooth Bend. They were frustrated, too.Danette Cross, who worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Alexander County until her retirement late last year, said most of the farmers knew her by name and often called her directly, expecting shed have answers. But to get anything resolved, Cross had to run questions up a chain through a half-dozen people. Im not going to say the whole thing was a disaster they closed on a lot of easements, she said, but nothing was timely. Hiatt, who had failed twice before to bring in funds for these farmers, tried again in 2019, this time banking their hopes on the emergency aid Congress had earmarked for the program. Hiatt said the Illinois team requested $24 million to buy out everyone who signed up at Dogtooth Bend. The payments are not full market value but allow farmers to invest in drier fields that would be less costly to the federal government in the long run. But headquarters authorized just under $6 million, which it applied to the very worst fields. Williams land was hit hard, but it didnt make the cut. That meant crop insurance and the other safety net farm bill programs would have to sustain him while he waited. This wasnt the only holdup. In 2018, Hiatt said, the agency had created a national team to handle land deals in an effort to improve efficiency. But he said it backfired.We were acquiring easements in 500 days when the Illinois office handled the process on its own, he said. Now weve got this specialized team theyre taking 800. The math is not working there.The head of USDAs Risk Management Agency, which oversees the crop insurance program, made a personal visit to the wreckage after the floodwaters receded in 2019. Martin Barbre, who led the agency for most of Trumps first term, knew the area well. He grew up visiting his relatives nearby and himself farms just 100 miles away. In a recent interview, Barbre said he empathized with the farmers and wanted to ensure they got everything they were legally owed through crop insurance.I mean, youve farmed that ground your whole life. Your familys owned it for, you know, probably for generations, and here its just gone, Barbre said. He didnt fault the farmers who kept planting while they waited for a federal buyout. As long as theyre insured, they have the legal right to do that, he said. When I was administrator, I had a saying: I want a producer to get every dime hes got coming from the program but not a penny more.In 2020, the USDA leadership released additional funding to purchase easements on Dogtooth Bend. Williams bounced between the two programs. Each required new paperwork and more time. In 2021, at a meeting in Olive Branch, Hiatt faced frustrated farmers. I took a beating, he said. And I was glad to take it, because it was poorly administered.Three more years passed, and no check had arrived for Williams. But the bills still did. Although it could barely grow a thing, the county still taxed Williams land on Dogtooth Bend like it was prime ground nearly $40,000 a year, according to Williams, calculated in part on farm productivity from across the state. That number would rise in each subsequent year, including on fields buried under 20 feet of sand. Thats because the rate wouldnt change until the buyout went through and it was officially classified as conservation land. Deer dart across a field at Dogtooth Bend in May as a storm approaches. As farms are returned to wetlands, local wildlife may benefit. (Julia Rendleman) As one of the poorest and fastest-shrinking places in America, Alexander County population 4,600 leans on farmers like Williams to fund basic government services and keep teachers employed in a school district with just over 300 kids. Farming in Alexander County accounts for $1 in every $7 in the local economy. And as more people move out of the county, there are fewer left to shoulder the tax burden. Sean Pecord, who farmed on Dogtooth Bend not far from Williams, was one of the first to sign up for the buyout program in 2019; his land was the worst hit. There was nothing left of it to farm, he said.They work at their own pace, said Pecord, who along with his wife also runs the nearby Horseshoe Bar and Grill. If they were operating on normal business terms, theyd be bankrupt in a year. Pecord received his payment in late 2023, about four years after he signed up. Williams was finally paid last September. Its not what they did, Williams said of the federal government. Its how long they took to do it. G. Pang, who lives in nearby Missouri and owns land on Dogtooth Bend with her six siblings, said theyre still waiting to get paid and for answers. She used to call Hiatts personal cellphone when she wanted a status update. But today, the USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service has been hollowed out, with some 2,400 conservation staffers at home on paid leave through September under the terms of the federal buyout, according to a May report by Politico. Hiatt and his two federal colleagues who oversaw easement purchases in Illinois are among them, as are nearly half the staff of 30 who had been tasked with handling back-end easement paperwork as part of the agencys national land team. Just going in there, taking a chainsaw, removing people and not knowing who youre going to replace them with, youre just creating a mess, Pang said of staff cuts under Trump that have left her family in the dark. Without the experienced staff, closing on these deals will take even longer, if it happens at all, Hiatt said. Whats happening now will never be reversed, Hiatt said. Once this is broken, which I dont know if the break is complete yet, but its pretty fractured, I dont think you can reset that bone.Several who joined the buyout were in their 70s and 80s. They were devastated, Renshaw recalled. Williams health has deteriorated in the last few years. Macular degeneration has claimed much of his eyesight. Although hes nearing retirement, he didnt expect to go out like this. Williams takes a lunch break with his family at his mothers house on the farm in June. (Julia Rendleman) One of the advertised benefits of the buyout program was that he could take the money and use it to buy farmland elsewhere. But by the time he had his check in hand and was ready to close on new land this year in Alexander County, prices had soared. That means the amount of money he agreed to when he signed on can no longer buy what hed planned to use it for.Williams is locked in to the 2020 rate, which is 50% lower than the maximum the government is paying today. If Williams had entered the program today, his land would be worth roughly $2 million more than he agreed to take. We could take two acres of that money and buy us an acre up here, he said. Now, he said, it takes at least three acres of that money to buy an acre up here.Part of him regrets signing the papers. The other part knows he didnt have a choice.That monster is still down there, he said of the river. It will be back. In May, Williams looks across the land he farmed until late last year at Dogtooth Bend. (Julia Rendleman)

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Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's El Centro Sector, poses for a photo after an interview with The Associated Press in Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)2025-09-04T12:01:32Z LOS ANGELES (AP) Gregory Bovinos distinguished Border Patrol career was in a downward spiral. In August 2023, he was relieved of command of the agencys El Centro, California, sector, where he rose to be one of 20 regional chiefs across the country.Bovino blamed a batch of perceived transgressions, details of which have not been previously reported: an online profile picture of him posing with an M4 assault rifle; social media posts that were considered inappropriate; and sworn congressional testimony that he and other sector chiefs gave on the state of the border during a record surge of migrants.Thirty minutes after his second congressional hearing, Bovino said, he was removed from his position and asked, Are you going to retire now?He did not retire, the profile photo with the assault rifle is back online and, at 55, he is leading immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, which the federal government has called ground zero for the effects of the border crisis. Bovinos fall and rise illustrates how fundamentally immigration policy, tactics and messaging have changed under President Donald Trump. While Trumps aggressive deportation plans accelerate, Bovino carefully hones his image, both his own and the one projected to the country that shows well-armed officers moving swiftly into place to make arrests. On a recent August morning, several unmarked SUVs with tinted windows sped to the curb outside a Home Depot in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. A Guatemalan tamale vendor was handcuffed while men with M4 rifles and military-style gear watched over and day laborers fled. Protesters sounded sirens and whistles. One briefly blocked a Border Patrol vehicle, but agents left in a little more than four minutes. Stay up to date with the latest U.S. news by signing up to our WhatsApp channel. The same team, dressed as civilians with faces masked and badges on their waists, stormed a car wash in the suburb of Montebello around 11:30 a.m. They made four arrests, including a Guatemalan worker who fled down an alley and a Mexican employee who was tackled after running into the office. It was over in seven minutes. These were just the kind of fast-paced, blunt maneuvers that Bovino relishes. With a knack for made-for-TV moments, Bovinos operation has riven parts of Los Angeles and given Trump allies fodder for boasts. In a city famous for second acts, Bovino is certainly having one. The North Carolina native with ample biceps and hair spiked with gel is an avatar of the Trump era, once scorned for his tactics, now praised because of them.With the change from President Joe Biden to Trump, Bovino has gone from nearly being forced to retire to a MAGA-world hero who sends holiday cards to colleagues that show agents with heavy weapons.Undeterred by court orders over racial profiling, Bovino also revels in breaking norms. Agents have smashed car windows, blown open a door to a house and patrolled the fabled MacArthur Park on horseback. Bovino often appears in tactical gear, as he did outside Gov. Gavin Newsoms news conference on congressional redistricting on Aug. 14. He also knows the power of a good slogan, calling the pacing of his operation turn and burn. Were not going to hit one location, were going to hit as many as we can, Bovino said in an interview in a seventh-floor conference room of the federal building in West Los Angeles, where an unused office wing serves as a sparsely furnished temporary base. All over all over the Los Angeles region, were going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and were not going to stop. Were not going to stop until theres not a problem here.As Chicago braces for a similar crackdown, the Los Angeles effort topped 5,000 arrests last week. A campaign in Washington, D.C., has resulted in many immigration arrests but is cast as a broader strike against crime and has a more central role for the National Guard. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday that Bovino called the head of the state police to say immigration officials were coming to Chicago, without elaborating. The border is everywhereU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has led interior immigration enforcement since it was created in 2003, but the Border Patrol has been around much longer. Bovinos sense of mission never strayed from the Border Patrols roots. When assigned to lead a station in Blythe, California, he pitched his boss, Paul Beeson, on raiding the airport and bus stations in Las Vegas.The 2010 operation was supposed to last three days but got called off after the first hour yielded dozens of arrests and unleashed a furious reaction from then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. Hes not afraid to push the envelope, very articulate, leads from the front, said Beeson, who, as a sector chief, selected Bovino to lead stations in Blythe and in Imperial Beach, California. In the first week of January, Bovino sent 60 agents hundreds of miles to Bakersfield, California, to make 78 arrests at farms and businesses. His staff acknowledged congratulatory comments on social media and posted photos of an encounter with someone whose car window was shattered after refusing to open it.The Los Angeles raids, which began with a blitz of Home Depots, car washes and an apparel factory, are an extension of what Bovino considers the Border Patrols proper role.What happens at the border, even 100 years ago, didnt stay at the border, and it still doesnt. Thats why were here in Los Angeles, he said.Allegations of heavy-handed tactics, racial profilingThe Associated Press joined a Border Patrol-led team July 23 during a lull in high-profile raids for what resembled a typically inconspicuous ICE operation. ICE has historically made arrests in the streets after investigation of individual targets, including surveillance that an official once likened to watching paint dry. Officials rarely have judicial warrants to enter a home, causing them to wait outside. After this light were going to light him up. ... Here we go, a Border Patrol agent said on the radio while trailing a Chinese man in Rancho Cucamonga. Moments later she reported, Suspect is in custody.The same team saw a Russian man enter his home in Irvine but backed off after three hours parked outside. They waited even longer for a Mexican man with a misdemeanor conviction for child molestation who never emerged from his house in El Monte, though they caught up with him two days later at a convenience store.Its not all turn and burn. Its also not a pace that will lead Trump to fulfill his promises of mass deportation.Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, remembers thinking to herself, What in the world is happening here? when immigration authorities hit multiple locations in Los Angeles on June 6, as they have on many days since. Masked officers tackled people with lightning-quick force. It was at another level, she said.Salas group sued and won a temporary order prohibiting arrests based on any mix of four factors: race and ethnicity; language; location; and occupation. The administration has appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that any of those factors can help justify reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally and that officers can make arrests based on the totality of the circumstances.A court filing by those who sued Bovino and the government says masked federal agents brandishing weapons cannot command people going about their daily lives to stop and prove their lawful presence solely because of their skin color, accent, where they happen to be, and the type of work they do.Where critics see heavy-handed racial profiling, Bovino sees legitimate use of force. Smashing a car window when a driver refuses to open and is subject to arrest is a safer tactic than letting someone drive away and then getting in a high-speed pursuit, he said.Blasting the door off a home in Huntington Park to search for a man accused of ramming a Border Patrol vehicle days earlier was a very, very prudent, thoughtful application of tactics, said Bovino, who joined that early-morning raid. I dont want to surround a house for hours and hours and hours and then create another riot. He dismissed allegations of profiling, saying he identifies targets based on intelligence, and he defended the optional use of masks for agents who fear that being identified may jeopardize their personal safety.Protesters strike backBut protesters trying to counter Bovinos raids have tactics of their own.On a balmy Saturday morning, about 150 volunteers filed into an auditorium at the headquarters of the Los Angeles teachers union to hear a leader of the Community Self-Defense Coalition speak for two hours about how to fight back, capped by a 15-minute session of role-playing as monitors and ICE officers. The speaker rattled off a list of most commonly used SUVs and telling signs that they are in the area, such as being double-parked, in red zones or clustered together. People were told to knock on the window to try to press officials for information and record license plates to determine if they have been spotted at other raids.When a raid unfolds, instructions are to get personal information of those arrested and record the action.When agents raided the Home Depot and car wash on Aug. 15, they were constantly watching for drivers who might be trailing them. The team met briefly in an office park but split up after workers started peering at their SUVs with tinted windows. Bovino uses the term time on the X to describe how long agents stay at the scene of a raid; they must leave quickly to avoid protesters. On this morning, the plan was no more than 10 minutes. The tamale vendor arrested outside the Home Depot had been under surveillance because she was previously removed from the country, though she had no criminal history. There were two targets at the car wash who were priorities because they had been previously deported, but they were apparently not there. Of the four arrested, one had previously been deported; none had criminal histories.Bovino relies on Border Patrol SWAT-style teams to avoid the chaos that erupted during an hourslong standoff at a Home Depot in Paramount on June 7. The Trump administration called in the National Guard and Marines to counter the protests. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that use of the Guard was illegal. Agents are developing new tactics to strike quickly, Bovino said, and to avoid protesters, as when they hid in a rented Penske truck to surprise laborers at a Home Depot last month. He said he plans to heavily promote an ICE tip line. Hes going to push the limitsIn some important respects, Bovino has been consistent. The world around him has changed. He joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and is nearing the agencys mandatory retirement age of 57. He eventually plans to return home to North Carolina to harvest apples.For now, he remains Border Patrol chief in El Centro, long a relatively quiet part of the border that has become even quieter as illegal crossings have plummeted to their lowest levels in six decades. Roughly 1,000 agents there averaged less than three arrests a day in July.His media savvy is on display each summer when Border Patrol sector chiefs hold news conferences to warn against illegal crossings. In 2021, Bovino led journalists in swimming across the All-American Canal, whose deceptively swift current and smooth concrete lining result in migrant deaths every year. In 2023, he locked reporters in a vehicle trunk, saying he wanted them to appreciate the dangers firsthand.While administration officials like to say they are deporting the worst of the worst, Bovino embraces arrests of hard-working people with deep roots in the country. He said they skip the line ahead of people waiting to enter the country legally. The folks undercutting American businesses, is that right? he said. Absolutely not. Thats why we have immigration laws in the first place, and thats why Im here.Some colleagues think Bovino he may rise higher; he has been under consideration to lead a Los Angeles-style operation in Chicago. The Homeland Security Department, asked for comment, says, Bovinos success in getting the worst of the worst out of the Los Angeles region speaks for itself. He sees what the right and left lanes are on this, and hes going to get out there and hes going push the limits, Beeson said.

The Fearless Girl statue stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)2025-09-04T04:26:41Z Wall Street inched higher ahead of new jobs data this week that could influence the Federal Reserves interest rate policy decision later this month.Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each rose 0.2% before the opening bell Thursday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged.Shares of American Eagle Outfitters are up 26% after the teen fashion retailer reported more than double the second-quarter profit that Wall Street forecast late Wednesday. The company benefitted from a frenzy of media attention in late July over its intentionally provocative advertising campaign featuring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney.The ads which featured the tagline Sydney Sweeney has great jeans sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to woke American politics and culture. Google gave back a sliver of Wednesdays 9.1% gain after it avoided some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case. Share of the tech giant ticked down less than 1% before the bell. Later Thursday, the government releases its latest weekly layoffs data, setting the table for the more important August jobs report on Friday. On Wednesday, government data showed that U.S. employers were advertising 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists had forecast and the latest sign of a weakening U.S. labor market.A deteriorating jobs landscape could push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at a meeting later this month. Thats the widespread expectation among traders, with the next big data point coming on Friday via an update on U.S. hiring during August. Last months grim July jobs report, which included massive downward revisions for June and May, sent financial markets spiraling and prompted President Donald Trump to fire the head of the agency that compiles the monthly data. Lower interest rates could give the job market and overall economy a boost. The downside is that they can also push inflation higher when Trumps tariffs may be already on the way to raising prices for all kinds of imports. In Europe at midday Germanys DAX climbed 0.8%, while Britains FTSE 100 added 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.1%.Japans Nikkei 225 jumped 1.5% to 42,580.27 while Australias S&P/ASX 200 added 1% to 8,826.50. South Koreas Kospi rose 0.5% to 3,200.83. Taiwans Taiex climbed 0.3% while Indias BSE Sensex added 0.5%. The Chinese markets bucked the trend, with Hong Kongs Hang Seng index down 1.1% to 25,056.85. The Shanghai Composite index fell 1.3% to 3,765.88 on fears regulators will intervene amid excessive stock gains and liquidity.

Afghans affected by a powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan on Sunday rest outside Nangarhar Regional Hospital in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)2025-09-04T11:23:16Z JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from houses destroyed by a major earthquake in Afghanistan last week, pushing the death toll to over 2,200, a Taliban government spokesman said Thursday.A 6.0 magnitude quake struck several provinces of the mountainous and remote east on Sunday night, levelling villages and trapping people under rubble. The majority of casualties have been in Kunar, where many live in steep river valleys separated by high mountains. Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, who provided the updated casualty figures, said rescue and search efforts were continuing. Tents have been set up for people, and the delivery of first aid and emergency supplies is ongoing.Rough terrain and funding cuts are hindering rescue and relief efforts, with aid agencies urging the international community to come forward with more support. Sundays quake is the third to devastate the country since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

This satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Lorena, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (NOAA via AP)2025-09-04T10:30:42Z MIAMI (AP) Hurricane Lorena is weakening and was expected to revert back to a tropical storm Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, adding theres still a risk of life-threatening flash floods and mudslides for parts of Mexicos west coast.The agency also issued watches for parts of the U.S. Southwest, where heavy rainfall from Lorena could lead to scattered flash flooding.Lorena was a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (129 kph). The storm was centered about 105 miles (169 kilometers) west-southwest of Cabo San Lazaro, Mexico, and traveling northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).The forecast said that rainfall totals could reach 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some places in the Mexican states of Baja California Sur, Baja California and Sonora, with risks of flash flooding and mudslides into Friday.Forecasters urged people on the Baja California peninsula and in northwestern Mexico to monitor the storms progress. In Arizona and New Mexico, the weather center said that heavy rainfall up to five inches (13 centimeters) was possible and issued watches for isolated flash flooding into Saturday. Lorenas track was still uncertain, with the possibility of a weakened storm making landfall in Baja California Sur or running parallel to the west coast of Mexico where the storm would dissipate over open water.Meanwhile, Hurricane Kiko was still a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with maximum sustained winds near 145 mph (233 kph), according to the hurricane center. It was centered about 1,520 miles (2,446 kilometers) east of Hilo, Hawaii, and was traveling west at 8 mph (13 kph).Forecasters said that Kiko wasnt expected to strengthen in the next day or so, and should start gradually weakening Friday and into the weekend.There were no watches or warnings associated with Kiko and no hazards affecting land.

President Donald Trump has threatened to revoke the citizenship of lesbian comedian Rosie ODonnell, even though he does not have the power to revoke citizenship, and ODonnell was born in the United States. She called his threat a distraction from recent revelations about his friendship with the now-deceased child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.As previously mentioned, we are giving serious thought to taking away Rosie ODonnells Citizenship, Trump wrote yesterday on his @realDonaldTrump account on X. She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so! His message included an image of ODonnells head, distorted to make it seem unnaturally large and grotesque. Related White House insults Rosie ODonnell after she says Trump wants to cancel The View In response, ODonnell reposted a screenshot of Trumps post on Instagram, writing, banishing me again? logan roy would be proud. Roy is the fictional patriarch and main antagonist of the HBO drama series Succession, a successful businessman and emotionally manipulative father who makes his adult children compete for his approval.Im the distraction, ODonnell continued. EPSTEIN SURVIVORS are the reckoning and your gold lam throne is melting.Her comment likely referred to a press conference held on the Capitol steps yesterday morning in which several of Epsteins female victims tearfully asked the president to help release documents that could reveal high-profile individuals complicit with Epsteins rape of underage girls. Some of the victims also noted Trumps past friendship with Epstein (though he has publicly denied any wrongdoing or close association despite photos, evidence, and his past comments that have substantiated the mens past connection). Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today The survivors also asked Trump to stop calling the furor around Epstein a hoax. Nevertheless, when asked about the press conference, Trump insisted the public uproar was a Democrat hoax that sought to pull attention away from his administrations successes, ABC News reported. Despite his claim, Republicans like Rep. Thomas Massie (KY) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) also attended the conference and have pushed for greater transparency from the administration and their fellow legislators. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rosie ODonnell (@rosie) This is actually the second time Trump has threatened to revoke ODonnells citizenship. He made a similar threat in July, writing, Because of the fact that Rosie ODonnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!In response, ODonnell addressed the president directly, writing, 18 years later and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours. You call me a threat to humanity but Im everything you fear: a loud woman, a queer woman, a mother who tells the truth, an American who got out when the country caught fire. Trump and ODonnells public feud began back in 2006, when ODonnell, who was a co-host on the daytime womens news talk showThe View, criticized Trumps moral compass. In response, he referred to ODonnell as a woman out of control.Then, in 2015, Megyn Kelly, the Fox News host who co-moderated the 2015 Republican primary debate, asked about his referring to women as fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.Trumpsaid that he only spoke that way about ODonnell.In August, ODonnell said thatTrump and his dictatorship might try to cancel the all-female daytime talk showThe Viewbecause of its co-hosts criticisms against him. (She once co-hosted the show.) In response, a White House spokesperson responded, Our country is better off with Rosie living abroad.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

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Information collected during the yearslong Salt Typhoon attack could allow Beijings intelligence services to track targets from the United States and dozens of other countries.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins Governor Greg Abbott as he signs Make Texas Healthy Again legislation at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)2025-09-04T13:00:48Z NEW YORK (AP) U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is to appear before a congressional committee Thursday, where he is expected to face questions about turmoil at federal health agencies.The Senate Finance Committee called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to Make America Healthy Again. But the health secretary is expected to face questions about layoffs and planned budget cuts that detractors say is wrecking the nations ability to prevent disease.That may include having Kennedy speak to the events of last week, when the Trump administration fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention less than a month into her tenure.Several top CDC leaders resigned in protect, leaving the agency in turmoil.The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections. I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric, Monarez wrote. It is imperative that the panels recommendations arent rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected. In a statement last week, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon the highest ranking Democrat on the committee said Kennedy must answer to the public and their representatives about the chaos, confusion, and harm his actions are inflicting on American families. Republicans including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician and vaccines supporter, are also likely to press Kennedy.Asked if he has confidence in the health secretary, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican on the committee, said he wants to hear from Kennedy in person.Hes got to reconcile what he said during his confirmation process with what weve seen over the past few months, particularly on vaccine policy, Tillis said. In May, Kennedy a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.In June, he abruptly a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committees recommendations.A number of medical groups say Kennedy cant be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on Kennedy to resign.Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe, the statement said.___Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. MIKE STOBBE Stobbe mainly covers public health for The Associated Press. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

The Rose Garden of The White House is seen from the Colonnade Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)2025-09-04T03:04:53Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump will host a high-powered list of tech CEOs for a dinner at the White House on Thursday night. The guest list is set to include Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a dozen other executives from the biggest artificial intelligence and tech firms, according to the White House. One notable absence from the guest list is Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump, whom the Republican president tasked with running the government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year. The dinner will be held in the Rose Garden, where Trump recently paved over the grassy lawn and set up tables, chairs and umbrellas that look strikingly similar to the outdoor setup at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio. The event will follow a meeting of the White Houses new Artificial Intelligence Education task force, which first lady Melania Trump will chair. During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children empowering, but with watchful guidance, she said in a statement. We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our responsibility to prepare Americas children. At least some of the attendees at the presidents Thursdays dinner are expected to participate in the task force meeting, which aims to develop AI education for American youths.The White House confirmed that the guest list for the dinner is also set to include Google founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir executive Shyam Sankar, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. Isaacman was an associate of Musk whom Trump nominated to lead NASA, only to revoke the nomination around the time of his breakup with Musk. Trump cited the revocation of the nomination as one of the reasons Musk was upset with him and called Isaacman totally a Democrat.The dinner was first reported Wednesday by The Hill. MICHELLE L. PRICE Price covers the White House. She previously covered the 2024 presidential campaign and politics, government and other news in New York, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. She is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Members of a congressional committee have demanded Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem for more information about Mobile Fortify, Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) new facial recognition app, which taps into an unprecedented array of government databases and uses a system ordinarily reserved for when people enter or exit the U.S. 404 Media first revealed the app in June.The Democratic lawmakers, Bennie G. Thompson, J. Luis Correa, and Shri Thanedar, are asking Noem a host of questions about the app, including what databases Mobile Fortify searches, the tools accuracy, and ICEs legal basis for using the app to identify people outside of ports of entry, including U.S. citizens.Congress has long had concerns with the Federal governments use of facial recognition technology and has regularly conducted oversight of how DHS utilizes this technology. The Mobile Fortify application has been deployed to the field while still in beta testing, which raises concerns about its accuracy, the letter from the Committee on Homeland Security and addressed to Noem reads.Do you know anything else about this app? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.404 Media first revealed Mobile Fortifys existence through leaked emails. Those emails showed that ICE officers could use the app to identify someone based on their fingerprints or face by just pointing a smartphone camera at them. The underlying Customs and Border Protection (CBP) system for the facial recognition part of the app is ordinarily used when people enter or leave the U.S. With Mobile Fortify, ICE then turned that capability inwards to identify people away from ports of entry.In the footnotes of the letter, the lawmakers indicate they have a copy of a similar email, and the letter specifically cites 404 Medias reporting.In July 404 Media published a second report based on a Mobile Fortify user manual which explained the apps capabilities and data sources in more detail. It said that Mobile Fortify uses a bank of 200 million images, and can pull up a subjects name, nationality, date of birth, alien number, and whether a judge has marked them for deportation. It also showed that Mobile Fortify links databases from the State Department, CBP, the FBI, and states into a single tool. A super query feature lets ICE officers query multiple databases at once regarding individuals, vehicles, airplanes, vessels, addresses, phone numbers and firearms.Face recognition technology is notoriously unreliable, frequently generating false matches and resulting in a number of known wrongful arrests across the country. Immigration agents relying on this technology to try to identify people on the street is a recipe for disaster. Congress has never authorized DHS to use face recognition technology in this way, and the agency should shut this dangerous experiment down, Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, previously told 404 Media.In their letter the lawmakers ask Noem questions about the apps legality, including ICEs legal basis to use the app to conduct biometric searches on people outside ports of entry; the databases Mobile Fortify has access to; any agreements between CBP and ICE about the app; information about the usage of the app, such as the frequency of ICE searches using the tool and what procedures ICE officials follow with the app; the apps accuracy; and any policies or training to ICE agents on how to use the app.To ensure ICE is equipped with technology that is accurate and in compliance with constitutional and legal requirements, the Committee on Homeland Security is conducting oversight of ICEs deployment of the Mobile Fortify application, the letter says.CBP acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.You can find a copy of the letter here.

Actor Daniel Craig was refreshingly honest during an appearance on restaurateur Bruce Bozzis Lunch With Bruce Sirius XM podcast.The actor candidly talked about his sexuality, why he goes to gay bars, and the night he was spotted kissing another man in a California bar.Related: The Dutch princess can marry another woman & still become QueenBozzi was spotted having an open-mouth passionate French kiss with the James Bond star in 2010. Bozzi is now married to Bryan Lourd, director and co-chair of the Creative Artist Agency and Star Wars actress Carrie Fishers former lover.It was definitely Daniel Craig and he was most certainly making out with a guy, tabloids reported at the time.In fact, Daniel held the guys head in his hands and pull[ed] him in for the kiss!If I hadnt seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it.For me, it was one of those situations and, and, and the irony is, you know, we kind of got caught, I suppose, which was kind of weird cause we were doing nothing fucking wrong, Craig said to Bozzi.What happened is we were having a nice night and I kind of were talking to you about my life when my life was changing and we got drunk and I was like, Oh, lets just go to a bar, come on, lets fucking go out. And I just was like, I know dont give a fuck and were in Venice [California].[It] is like, fuck it, everythings fine. Dont worry about it. We got your back, right, he said, noting that the states spirit is what made him move there. Everybodys in, theres something magical about it. And that was there that night.Ive been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember, 007 added, saying he got tired of the toxic masculinity at straight bars.One of the reasons, because I dont get into fights in gay bars that often because the aggressive dick swinging in hetero bars, I just got very sick of [it].As a kid because it was like I dont want to end up eating in a punch up. And I did. That would happen quite a lot. And it would just be a good place to go. Everybody was chill, everybody. You didnt really have to sort of state your sexuality. It was okay. And it was a very safe place to be.Still, it wasnt all just for the friendly camaraderie with other men.And I could meet girls there, cause there are a lot of girls there for exactly the same reason I was there, he said. It was kind of an ulterior motive.The actor, who has been married to actress Rachel Weisz since 2011, has not come out as bisexual and publicly identifies as straight.

As LGBTQ-inclusive books are being pulled from classrooms and libraries at an alarming rate, GLAAD is taking direct action by mailing hundreds of copies of a beloved (and banned) LGBTQ title straight to every member of Congress and the Supreme Court. The campaign is built around Uncle Bobbys Wedding, a joyful childrens book co-published by [...]The post How GLAAD is Combatting Censorship by Sending LGBTQ Books Straight to Capitol Hill first appeared on GLAAD.

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2025-09-04T13:47:09Z DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Israeli strikes killed at least 28 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, overnight and into Thursday, local health officials said. Hamas and Israel reiterated their incompatible demands for ending the nearly two-year war sparked by the militant groups Oct. 7 attack.The Gaza Health Ministry meanwhile said the overall Palestinian death toll has climbed past 64,000, including around 400 people who were listed as missing but who it said had been confirmed dead.Hamas released a statement late Wednesday saying it was open to returning all 48 hostages it still holds around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of Gaza, the opening of border crossings and a start to the daunting challenge of rebuilding Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office dismissed the offer as spin and said the war would continue until all the hostages are returned, Hamas is disarmed and Israel has full security control of the territory, with civilian administration delegated to others. Talks on a temporary ceasefire that would have seen some of the hostages returned broke down last month when U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff walked away, blaming Hamas. The militant group later accepted a proposal that Hamas and Arab mediators said was almost identical to an earlier one accepted by Israel, but theres been no public indication that talks have resumed. The latest strikes came as Israeli troops were operating on the outskirts of famine-stricken Gaza City in the initial stages of a planned offensive to take over the most populous Palestinian city, home to around a million people, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times.Shifa Hospital in Gaza City received 25 bodies, including nine children and six women, after Israeli strikes hit tents housing displaced people, according to hospital records. Among those killed was a 10 day-old baby. Another three people were killed in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants are entrenched in densely-populated areas.Gazas Health Ministry does not say how many of those killed were militants or civilians. It says women and children make up around half the dead.The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. Its figures are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by U.N. agencies and many independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 people. Most have since been released in ceasefires or other agreements.___Chehayeb reported from Beirut.___Follow AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war KAREEM CHEHAYEB Chehayeb is an Associated Press reporter in Beirut. twitter instagram mailto

Giorgio Armani receives his share of applause after presenting his Emporio Fall-Winter 2007-2008 men's fashion collection, during the Milan Men's Fashion Week, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Jan. 15, 2007. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)2025-09-04T13:23:47Z MILAN (AP) Giorgio Armani, the Italian designer who turned the concept of understated elegance into a multibillion-dollar fashion empire, has died, his fashion house confirmed. He was 91.Armani died at home, the fashion house said. Armani, one of the most recognizable names and faces in the global fashion industry, missed Milan Fashion Week in June 2025 for the first time during the previews of Spring-Summer 2026 menswear to recover from an undisclosed condition. He was planning a major event to celebrate 50 years of his signature Giorgio Armani fashion house during Milan Fashion Week this month.Starting with an unlined jacket, a simple pair of pants and an urban palette, Armani put Italian ready-to-wear style on the international fashion map in the late 1970s, creating an instantly recognizable relaxed silhouette that has propelled the fashion house for half a century. From the executive office to the Hollywood screen, Armani dressed the rich and famous in classic tailored styles, fashioned in super-soft fabrics and muted tones. His handsome black tie outfits and glittering evening gowns often stole the show on award season red carpets.At the time of his death, Armani had put together an empire worth over $10 billion, which along with clothing included accessories, home furnishings, perfumes, cosmetics, books, flowers and even chocolates, ranking him in the worlds top 200 billionaires, according to Forbes.The designer also owned several bars, clubs, restaurants and his own basketball team EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, better known as Olympia Milano. Armani opened more than than 20 restaurants from Milan to Tokyo since 1998, and two hotels, one in Dubai in 2009 and another in Milan, in 2010. Armani himself was the foundation of his styleArmani style began with Giorgio Armani himself, from the penetrating blue eyes framed in a permanent tan and early-age shock of silver hair, to the trademark jeans and t-shirt work clothes and the minimalist decoration of his private homes.Armanis fashion vision was that of easygoing elegance where attention to detail made the difference.I design for real people. There is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothes and accessories that are not practical, he liked to say when asked to identify his clientele.In conversation, the designers disarming smile and exquisitely mild manners belied the tough businessman underneath, who was able to turn creative talent into a fashion empire worth over $10 billion. Never a merger nor a sale, Re Giorgio (King George) as the Italians call him, was always his own boss.Born July 11, 1934, in Piacenza, a small town south of Milan, Armani dreamed of becoming a doctor before a part-time job as a window decorator in a Milan department store opened his eyes to the world of fashion.In 1975, Armani and his partner Sergio Galeotti sold their Volkswagen for $10,000 to start up their own menswear ready-to-wear label. Womenswear followed a year later.The symbol of his new style was the liningless sports jacket, which was launched in the late 1970s and became an instant success from Hollywood to Wall Street. The designer paired the jacket with a simple t-shirt, an item of clothing he termed the alpha and omega of the fashion alphabet. The Armani suit soon became a must in the closet of the well-heeled man. And for women, the introduction of the pantsuit in the executive workroom was all but revolutionary. Dubbed the power suit with its shoulder-padded jacket and man-tailored trousers, it became the trademark of the rising class of businesswomen in the 1980s.Over the years Armani would soften the look with delicate detailing, luxurious fabrics and brighter shades for his basic beige and gray palette. His insistence on pants and jackets led some critics to label his fashion androgynous. Armani hits HollywoodThe 1980 film classic American Gigolo launched both Armani and actor Richard Gere on their Hollywood careers. Dressed in Armani, Gere became Americas new favorite heart throb, and Geeorgeeo as they called him, the glam sets most popular designer.The Hollywood connection earned him wardrobe film credits in over 200 films, and in 2003 a place on Rodeo Drives Walk of Fame.Oscar night always sparkled, with smart suiting for the men, and glittering gowns for the ladies. The 2009 best actor winner Sean Penn picked up his statue in a black-on-black Armani outfit, while best actress nominee Anne Hathaway walked the red carpet in a shimmering white strapless evening gown from Armanis latest Prive couture collection.Other longtime devotees included Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Sofia Loren and Brad Pitt. David and Victoria Beckham were the face of his 2009 underwear ad campaign.So significant was the impact of Armani style, not only on how people dressed but how they approached fashion, that in 2000 New Yorks Guggenheim museum presented a retrospective of Armanis first 25 years in fashion.I love things that age well, things that dont date and become living examples of the absolute best, Armani said of his efforts. Armani has gone well beyond fashionToday, the Armani empire has an army of more than 9,000 employees, with women comprising half of the executive suite, along with seven industrial hubs and over 600 stores worldwide, according to figures released in 2023. Along with clothes and accessories, the company produces perfumes, cosmetics and home furnishings, as well as selling its own candy, flowers and even books. The designer opened his fifth multi-brand store on New Yorks fashionable Fifth Avenue in February 2009.In the realm of fashion hobbies, Armani owned several bars, restaurants and clubs, as well as the basketball team. Recreation time was spent in getaways in Broni in the countryside near Milan, the isle of Pantelleria off Sicily and St. Tropez on the French Riviera. Each home bore the trademark of Armani design: bare walls, important pieces, few knickknacks.Like many of his colleagues, Armani tried to give back some of the fame and fortune he amassed during the heyday of the moda Milanese which put Italian ready-to-wear at the center of the worlds fashion map at the turn of the millennium. Personally involved in several charity organizations devoted to children and a staunch supporter of the battle against AIDS, in 2002 Armani was named a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugees.Galeotti died in 1985. Armani had no children but was very close to his niece Roberta, daughter of his late brother Sergio. She abandoned a budding film career to become his director of public relations, and often represented her uncle, who wasnt much of a party-goer, at social events. In later years she was a key go-between with the celebrity world. In 2006, she orchestrated the top-billed wedding of actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in a medieval castle outside Rome, while Uncle Giorgio designed the attire for both bride and groom.Armani had indicated that as he considered succession he was looking toward his longtime head of menswear Leo DellOrco and his niece Silvana Armani, who fills the same role for womenswear. COLLEEN BARRY Barry covers all things Italy for The Associated Press. Her focus includes fashion and design, overtourism and the environment, politics and sometimes the Vatican. twitter instagram mailto

A hacker has broken into Nexar, a popular dashcam company that pitches its users dashcams as virtual CCTV cameras around the world that other people can buy images from, and accessed a database of terabytes of video recordings taken from cameras in drivers cars. The videos obtained by the hacker and shared with 404 Media capture people clearly unaware that a third party may be watching or listening in. A parent in a car soothing a baby. A man whistling along to the radio. Another person on a Facetime call. One appears to show a driver heading towards the entrance of the CIAs headquarters. Other images, which are publicly available in a map that Nexar publishes online, show drivers around sensitive Department of Defense locations.The hacker also found a list of companies and agencies that may have interacted with Nexars data business, which sells access to blurred images captured by the cameras and other related data. This can include monitoring the same location captured by Nexars cameras over time, and lets clients explore the physical world and gain insights like never before, and use its virtual CCTV cameras to monitor specific points of interest, according to Nexars website.The breach shows in stark terms the security and privacy risks of adding an always-on camera to vehicles, be that the risk to individuals, or even governments that dont want data related to their facilities or employees accessed by hackers or potentially other governments. It also shows that companies around the world have at least explored leveraging dashcam-related data for their own purposes, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google, a host of AI companies, and even Pokmon Go creator Niantic, according to the document that lists organizations that Nexar says have had access to its data.Nexar is an absolute privacy nightmare, their security is embarrassing, I would be very surprised if no one (foreign government or just bad actor) wasnt already tapping their customer data, the hacker behind the breach told 404 Media. I was able to in 2 hours or so. Do you know anything else about Nexar or any other company mentioned here? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.The hacker provided a few dozen or so Nexar dashcam recordings for verification purposes.In one clip, the Nexar camera is faced inwards to the car, capturing what appears to be a rideshare driver picking up passengers. Like in many other videos, the peoples faces are clearly visible.Many, of course, show vehicles driving down a road or highway.As well as letting users record their own trips, Nexar monetizes users data and recordings by repackaging them into various products. One of those is the companys CityStream map, which displays recent and blurred images taken by Nexar dashcams on a publicly available map and annotates things such as yield or speed limit signs, damaged roads, and other hazards. The idea is for companies or public bodies to then pay for access to more of this data. Three Nexar users 404 Media spoke to all said they did not know that Nexar was posting user dashcam images publicly like this. The images on this site have license plates, faces, and car dashes blurred. Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, Nexar co-founder and CTO, told 404 Media in an email that per Nexars privacy policy, users contributing to CityStream are either opt-out or opt-in depending on the jurisdiction.The hacker highlighted that some of these images were taken inside vehicles that appeared to be entering sensitive U.S. government facilities, such as the Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, which houses B-2 stealth bombers, and Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, which is the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command. One showed a Nexar user driving on the road towards 1000 Colonial Farm Road, the CIAs headquarters.From there, the hacker was able to find an unblurred video from this specific CIA-related user in the terabytes of hacked data. It showed the driver taking an exit off a road that heads towards the headquarters. The end of the clip shows them removing the camera from the dashboard itself.The CIA did not respond to a request for comment on its policies concerning staff or visitors use of personal dashcams, such as are they required to remove them from the dashboard before approaching headquarters or other facilities. Multiple representatives of the Air Force did not respond to requests for comment.The hacker said they were able to access one of Nexars AWS buckets, a type of database run by Amazon Web Services, in which they found more than 130 terabytes of data. That included raw recordings from peoples dashcams and GPS data, the hacker said. The issue, the hacker said, was that embedded in every Nexar dashcam was a key to this database which had too high privileges, allowing anyone with the key not just to upload their own cameras data, but also access that of everyone else. Nexar fixed this issue after being contacted by 404 Media this week. Fernandez-Ruiz said these recordings were users private backups.A screenshot from an image on Nexar's public map showing a car entering Whiteman Air Force Base.The hacker also broke into Nexars Atlassian instance, a company that makes collaboration tools such as Jira and Trello, and obtained a file laying out companies and organizations that Nexar says have had access to the company's data. Beyond its CityStream product, Nexar also offers Virtual Cam, which gives access to anonymized images captured by the dashcams over time. In a demonstration video, Nexar shows a user selecting a location in New York City, being shown the most recently captured dashcam image, then using a timeline to scroll backwards and see earlier images from the same location.One organization with access to Virtual Cam data is listed as IDF, according to the document. It says this organization has access to data inside Israel. Fernandez-Ruiz said We do not work with the Israeli Defense Forces. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a request for comment. Nexar is headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York.Entities that have had access to Nexar data include big tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google; Pokmon Go creator Niantic; transportation companies Lyft and Waymo; the cities of Los Angeles and Austin; and many AI and logistics focused companies, according to the document.Microsoft said that it explored using Nexar imagery for mapmaking purposes before March 2023, but that the work did not proceed beyond that evaluation stage. Google said it couldnt comment on relationships with specific companies, but that it uses third party imagery to update its maps. Amazon said it evaluated Nexar data to improve driver safety a few years ago and decided not to work with the company. Apple said it did not enter a partnership with Nexar. Lyft and Waymo did not respond. Niantic declined to comment.Last week 404 Media reported that surveillance company Flock, which has directly and indirectly provided data to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is looking to integrate with Nexar. Flock is included in the list of companies and organizations given access to Nexar data. In the product column it says Flock has All, and under location it says Worldwide. A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media Flock and Nexar do not currently have an integration, and we have no products available for customers. Fernandez-Ruiz said Flock Safetys access to CityStream as part of our collective partnership evaluation is definitively restricted to blurred, unidentifiable data.Researchers who have used Nexars blurred data have previously raised privacy concerns with it. In a paper published in June, they wrote Despite good-faith efforts by DSI [dense street imagery] providers to protect individual privacy through blurring faces and license plates, these measures fail to address broader privacy concerns. In this work, we find that increased data density and advancements in artificial intelligence enable harmful group membership inferences from supposedly anonymized data. They point to examples such as a high viz vest still revealing that a blurred person works for the NYPD.The NYPD is also listed in the hacked internal material as having had access to Nexars Virtual Cam product. An agency spokesperson said The NYPD does not have a formal relationship or contract with Nexar and we have not purchased any data from them. The spokesperson did not reply when asked if the NYPD had any sort of informal relationship with Nexar, or whether it evaluated the companys data.Nexars global customer base and their access to CityStream for road intelligence are all subject to strict privacy guidelines and protocols that prevent access to personally identifiable information, Fernandez-Ruiz added.Update: this piece has been updated to include a response from Apple.

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President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, on April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)2025-09-04T15:00:37Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump likes to boast about how much money the U.S. Treasury is raking in from the massive taxes tariffs -- hes slapped this year on imports from almost every country in the world.We have trillions of dollars coming into our country, Trump said Wednesday. If we didnt have tariffs, we would be a very poor nation and we would be taken advantage of by every other nation in the world, friend and foe.But two courts have now ruled that his biggest and boldest import taxes are illegal. If the Supreme Court agrees and strikes them down for good, the federal government could have to pay back many of the taxes its already collected from companies that import foreign products into the United States.Were talking about hundreds of billions of dollars potentially in refunds affecting thousands and thousands of importers, said trade lawyer Luis Arandia, a partner with the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. Unwinding all that will be the largest administrative effort in U.S. government history. Ordinary Americans, whove had to pay higher prices on some products because of the tariffs, are unlikely to share in the windfall. Any refunds would go instead to the companies that paid the levies in the first place. The refunds would also reverse the flow of tariff revenue the president has counted on to help pay for the massive tax-cut bill he signed July 4 and would threaten, he warns, to literally destroy the United States of America. At issue are revenues raised from tariffs Trump imposed this year by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). One set of IEEPA tariffs targeted almost every country on earth after he declared that the United States massive and persistent trade deficits amounted to a national emergency. Another was aimed at Canada, China and Mexico and was meant to counter the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across U.S. borders. But a specialized federal trade court in New York ruled in May that the president overstepped his authority by ignoring Congress and imposing the IEEPA tariffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week largely upheld the trade courts decision, though it also ordered the lower court to re-consider whether there was any legal fix short of striking down the tariffs completely.The appellate judges also paused their own ruling until mid-October to give the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court something that it did on Wednesday. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to take up the case and hear arguments in early November.If the high court strikes down the IEEPA tariffs, importers could be entitled to refunds. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reports that it had collected more than $72 billion in IEEPA tariffs through Aug. 24.For importers, Ted Murphy, co-leader of the international trade practice at the Sidley Austin law firm, said: Its a question of what youre going to have to do to get the refund. And the options are everything from nothing the government may just automatically refund it; I dont think this is likely, but thats one option. There could be an administrative process, so you have to go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and apply for a refund of your IEEPA tariffs. Or you could have to file your own court case.Theres a precedent for courts setting up a system to give companies their money back in trade cases. In the 1990s, the courts struck down as unconstitutional a harbor maintenance fee on exports and set up a system for exporters to apply to get their money back.Companies got refunds, Murphy said. One hitch: In that case, the government did not have to pay interest on the tax it collected and had to pay back. Its unclear whether the government would have to pay interest on any IEEPA tariff refunds.The Trump administration might balk at paying back the tariffs its collected. Trump has already said he doesnt want to pay the money back, posting on his social media site in August that doing so would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION! I would anticipate that if the administration did lose, they would turn around and start arguing why it would be impossible to give refunds to everybody, said Brent Skorup, legal fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. I think there will a lot of litigation about the nature of refunds and whos entitled one. And I expect the administration will raise all sorts of objections.'To make sure they can successfully claim refunds, said Barnes & Thornberg partner Clinton Yu, importers really need to have their records in order.Adding to the uncertainty is the chaotic way that Trump has rolled out his tariffs announcing and then delaying or altering them, sometimes conjuring up new ones. Occasionally, the administration has decided that importers that have already paid one of his tariffs dont have to pay a different one. Tariff are paid by importers, who often then try to pass the cost on to their customers through higher prices. But consumers would not have recourse to ask for refunds for the higher prices they had to pay.Its the importer of record that is legally liable for paying tariffs and duties, Arandia said. They would be the only one to have standing to even get that money back.____AP Writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Josh Boak contributed to this story.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb walks outside of federal court in Washington, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)2025-09-04T15:05:50Z WASHINGTON (AP) The District of Columbia on Thursday sued to stop President Donald Trumps deployment of National Guard during law enforcement intervention in Washington.The citys attorney general, Brian Schwalb, said the hundreds of troops are essentially an involuntary military occupation. He argued in the federal lawsuit that the deployment is an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement. A federal judge in California recently ruled that Trumps deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles after days of protests over immigration raids in June was illegal. The Republican administration is appealing that decision and Trump has said he is ready to order federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore, despite staunch opposition in those Democrat-led cities. That ruling, however, does not directly apply to Washington, where the president has more control over the Guard than in states. LINDSAY WHITEHURST Whitehurst covers the Supreme Court and legal affairs for The Associated Press. Shes won multiple journalism awards in a career thats spanned two decades. twitter mailto

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron, arrive to attend a summit on Ukraine at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, France, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)2025-09-04T10:23:35Z KYIV, Ukraine (AP) French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that 26 of Ukraines allies have pledged to deploy troops as a reassurance force for the war-torn country once fighting ends in the conflict with Russia.Speaking after a meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing in Paris, Macron said the countries had committed to deploying troops in Ukraine or to maintaining a presence on land, at sea, or in the air to help guarantee the countrys security the day after a ceasefire or peace is achieved.Earlier Thursday, Macron and other European leaders met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the the U.S. envoy for peace talks, Steve Witkoff, to discuss ways of ensuring long-term military support and continued American backing for Ukraine once the conflict ends. Zelenskyys office said he also held a closed-door meeting with Witkoff. The European leaders some of whom joined the meeting virtually said Russia must now work toward ending the fighting, and the German government suggested European sanctions on Russia would increase if Moscow drags its feet. The European leaders also later spoke by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump. Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who lead the group, have insisted that any European reassurance force in Ukraine needs the backing of the United States.Starmers office said after the meeting that the British prime minister emphasized that the group had an unbreakable pledge to Ukraine, with President Trumps backing, and it was clear they now needed to go even further to apply pressure on (Russian president Vladimir) Putin to secure a cessation of hostilities. Starmers office also mentioned a decision from the coalition to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine to further bolster the countrys supplies.Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian presidents chief of staff, said Thursday after meeting Witkoff and other national security advisers that the security guarantees must be strong and effective in the air, at sea, on land and in cyberspace. Trump phone callSome leaders took part in person in the Paris talks while others joined virtually. They were set to speak with Trump over the phone after the meeting.Some leaders took part in person in the Paris talks while others joined virtually. They spoke with Trump over the phone after the meeting.They expressed the hope that the United States would continue to make a substantial contribution to the joint efforts to support Ukraine, formulate security guarantees, and shape a productive diplomatic process, German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who attended virtually, laid out three areas of action, including working toward a summit that would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a ceasefire must be agreed there.If the Russian side continues to play for time, Europe will increase the pressure of sanctions to increase the chances of a diplomatic solution, the statement said. Positive signalsIn a policy shift earlier this month, the U.S. sent positive signals over its readiness to support security guarantees for Ukraine that resemble NATOs collective defense mandate, Zelenskyy said. It is unclear what that support would look like in practice. Ukraine is hoping for continued U.S. intelligence sharing and air support. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who attended the meeting virtually, said that a broad coalition of nations is needed to support Ukraines defense against Russian aggression, but also to strengthen Europe to deter further military action by Moscow. Citing European military and intelligence officials who have warned of Russian plans to strike other European countries, Rutte said that we have to make sure that our deterrence is such that they will never try, knowing that our reaction will be devastating.Rutte also called for the world to not be naive about Russia.We know what Putin tries to do and and the evidence is there in Ukraine as we speak, he said. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia fired 112 strike and decoy drones across the country overnight Thursday, according to Ukraines Air Force morning report. Air defenses intercepted or jammed 84 drones, the statement said. Russia on Thursday announced that it was expelling an Estonian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move after Estonia declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata last month.___Petrequin reported from London. Associated Press reporters from across the globe contributed to this report. SAMUEL PETREQUIN Petrequin has been covering sports and general news for The Associated Press for more than two decades. twitter mailto

This photo provided by Catalent shows Catalent's MindMed's formulation of LSD. (Catalent via AP)2025-09-04T15:04:05Z WASHINGTON (AP) LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century.The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval.Beginning in the 1950s, researchers published a flurry of papers exploring LSDs therapeutic uses, though most of them dont meet modern standards.I see this paper as a clear step in the direction of reviving that old research, applying our modern standards and determining what are the real costs and benefits of these compounds, said Frederick Barrett, who directs Johns Hopkins Universitys psychedelic center and was not involved in the research. Psychedelic research is rebounding Psychedelics are in the midst of a popular and scientific comeback, with conferences, documentaries, books and medical journals exploring their potential for conditions like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.The FDA has designated psilocybin, MDMA and now LSD as potential breakthrough therapies based on early results.Still, the drugs have not had a glide path to the market.Last year, the FDA rejected MDMA also known as ecstasy as a treatment for PTSD, citing flawed study methods, potential research bias and other issues.The new LSD study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, addresses some of those problems.MDMA, like many other psychedelics, was tested in combination with hours of talk therapy by trained health professionals. That approach proved problematic for FDA reviewers, who said it was difficult to separate the benefits of the drug from those of therapy. The LSD study took a simpler approach: Patients got a single dose of LSD under professional supervision, but without therapy and then were followed for about three months.The paper does not detail how patients were prepared for the experience or what sort of follow-up they received, which is crucial to understanding the research, Barrett noted. In many cases people can have such powerful, subjective experiences that they may need to talk to a therapist to help them make sense of it, he said.Anxiety eased but questions remainFor the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia.At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose 100 milligrams continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches. Patients who got dummy pills also improved a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug.The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies.Most patients were able to correctly guess whether theyd received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the blinded approach thats considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set.It also wasnt clear how long patients might continue to benefit.Mindmed is conducting two large, late-stage trials that will track patients over a longer period of time and, if successful, be submitted for FDA approval.Its possible that some people may need retreatment, said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the studys lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. How many retreatments, we dont know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant. Interest from the Trump administrationHealth Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other administration officials have expressed interest in psychedelic therapy, suggesting it could receive fast-track review for veterans and others suffering psychological wounds.Generalized anxiety disorder is among the most common mental disorders, affecting nearly 3% of U.S. adults, according to the National Institutes of Health. Current treatments include psychotherapy, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs like benzodiazepines.The possibility of using LSD as a medical treatment isnt new.In the 1950s and 1960s more than 1,000 papers were published documenting LSDs use treating alcohol addiction, depression and other conditions. But a federal backlash was in full swing by the late 1960s, when psychedelics became linked to counterculture figures like Timothy Leary, the ex-Harvard professor who famously promoted the drugs as a means to turn on, tune in and dropout. A 1970 law classifying LSD and other psychedelics as Schedule 1 drugs without any medical use and high potential for abuse essentially halted U.S. research.When a handful of nonprofits begin reassessing the drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, they focused on lesser-known hallucinogens like MDMA and psilocybin, the main ingredient in magic mushrooms, to avoid the historic controversies surrounding LSD.LSD was right there in front of everybody, but Mindmed is the first company that actually decided to evaluate it, Fava said.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. MATTHEW PERRONE Perrone covers the intersection of medicine, business and health policy. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, on April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)2025-09-04T14:43:19Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump is seeking a swift and definitive decision on tariffs from the Supreme Court that he helped shape, saying the country would be on the brink of economic catastrophe without the import taxes he has imposed on U.S. rivals and allies alike.The administration used near-apocalyptic terms that are highly unusual in Supreme Court filings as it asked the justices late Wednesday to intervene and reverse an appeals court ruling that found most of Trumps tariffs are an illegal use of an emergency powers law. The tariffs remain in place, for now.The tariffs and their erratic rollout have shaken global markets, alienated U.S. trading partners and allies, and raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth. But the Republican president has also used the trade penalties to pressure the European Union, Japan and others into accepting new deals. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by late August, more than double what it was at the same point a year earlier. Raising the stakes even higher, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to decide in a weeks time whether to hear the case and hold arguments the first week of November. That is far faster than the pace of the typical Supreme Court case. The President and his Cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe, Sauer wrote. He wrote that it is not just trade that is at issue, but also the nations ability to reduce the flow of fentanyl and efforts to end Russias war against Ukraine.The tariffs will almost certainly remain in effect until a final ruling from the Supreme Court. But the Republican administration nevertheless called on the high court to intervene quickly. That decision casts a pall of uncertainty upon ongoing foreign negotiations that the President has been pursuing through tariffs over the past five months, jeopardizing both already negotiated framework deals and ongoing negotiations, Sauer wrote. The stakes in this case could not be higher.The filing cites not only Trump but also the secretaries of the departments of Treasury, Commerce and State in support of the urgent need for the justices to step in.The stakes are also high for small businesses battered by tariffs and uncertainty, said Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center.These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival. We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients, he said.The businesses have twice prevailed, once at a federal court focused on trade and again with the appeals courts 7-4 ruling. Their lawsuit is one of several challenging the tariffs.Most judges on the Federal Circuit found that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not allow Trump to usurp congressional power to set tariffs. The dissenters, though, said the gives the president the power to regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. The ruling involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency: the tariffs first announced in April and the ones from February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes, including tariffs. But over the decades, lawmakers have ceded authority to the president, and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.Some Trump tariffs, including levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, were not covered by the appeals court ruling. It also does not include tariffs Trump imposed on China in his first term that were kept by Democratic President Joe Biden.Trump can impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act.The government has argued that if the tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that its collected, delivering a financial blow to the U.S. Treasury. LINDSAY WHITEHURST Whitehurst covers the Supreme Court and legal affairs for The Associated Press. Shes won multiple journalism awards in a career thats spanned two decades. twitter mailto MARK SHERMAN Sherman has covered the Supreme Court for The Associated Press since 2006. His journalism career spans five decades. He is based in Washington, D.C., and previously lived in New York, Paris and Atlanta. twitter mailto