September 21, 2025

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San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert doesn’t generally agree with political parties redrawing congressional maps to gain power.

But after President Trump persuaded Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw his state’s maps in order to improve Republican chances of retaining control of Congress in 2026, Von Wilpert said she decided California’s only option was to fight back with new maps of its own, favoring Democrats.

There’s too much at stake for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized Californians to do otherwise, said Von Wilpert — who is bisexual and running to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Darrell Issa, a Trump ally whose district in San Diego and Riverside counties will be redrawn if voters approve the plan.

“We can’t sit on the sidelines anymore and just hope that the far right will play fair or play by the rule book,” said Von Wilpert, 42. “If we don’t fight back now, I don’t know what democracy is going to be left for us to fight for in the future.”

Von Wilpert’s challenge to Issa — who did not respond to a request for comment — makes her part of a growing wave of LGBTQ+ candidates running for office at a time when many on the right and in the Trump administration are working aggressively to push queer people out of the American mainstream, including by challenging drag queen performances, queer library books and an array of Pride displays, and by questioning transgender people’s right to serve in the military, receive gender-affirming healthcare, participate in sports or use public restrooms.

They are running to counter those efforts, but also to resist other administration policies that they believe threaten democracy and equality more broadly, and to advocate around local issues that are important to them and their neighbors, said Elliot Imse, executive director of the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute.

The institute, which has trained queer people on running for and holding political office since 1991, has already provided 450 people with in-person training so far this year, compared with 290 people all of last year, Imse said. It recently had to cap a training in Los Angeles at 54 people — its largest cohort in more than a decade — and a first-of-its-kind training for transgender candidates at 12 people, despite more than 50 applying.

“LGBTQ+ people have been extremely motivated to run for office across the country because of the attacks on their equality,” Imse said. “They know the risk, they know the potential for harassment, but those fears are really overcome by the desire to make a difference in this moment.”

“This isn’t about screaming we are trans, this is about screaming we are human — and showing that we are here, that we are competent leaders,” said Josie Caballero, voting and elections director at Advocates for Trans Equality, which helped run the training.

Across the country

Queer candidates still face stiff resistance in some parts of the country. But they are winning elections elsewhere like never before — Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware became the first out transgender member of Congress last year — and increasingly deciding to run.

Some are Republicans who support Trump and credit him with kicking open the political door for people like them by installing gay leaders in his administration, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Ed Williams, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBTQ+ organization, said his group has seen “a surge in interest” under Trump, with “new members and chapters springing up across the country.” He said that “LGBT conservatives stand with President Trump’s fight for commonsense policies that support our schools and parents, put America first, and create opportunities for all Americans.”

Ryan Sheridan, 35, a gay psychiatric nurse practitioner challenging fellow Republican incumbent Rep. Ann Wagner for her House seat in Missouri, said Trump has made the Republican Party a “more welcoming environment” for gay people. He said he agrees with Trump that medical interventions for transgender youth should be stopped, but also believes others in the LGBTQ+ community misunderstand the president’s perspective.

“I do not believe that he is anti-trans. I do not believe he is anti-gay,” Sheridan said. “I understand the fear might be real, but I would encourage anybody that is deeply fearful to explore some alternative points of view.”

Many more LGBTQ+ candidates, however, are Democrats or progressives — and say they were driven to run in part by their disdain for Trump and his policies.

JoAnna Mendoza, a bisexual retired U.S. Marine, said she is running to unseat Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) because she took an oath to defend the U.S. and its values, and she believes those values are under threat from an administration with no respect for LGBTQ+ service members, immigrants or other vulnerable groups.

Mike Simmons, the first out LGBTQ+ state senator in Illinois, is running for the House seat of retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and leaning into his outsider persona as a gay Black man and the son of an Ethiopian asylum seeker. “I symbolize everything Donald Trump is trying to erase.”

Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who is a lesbian, said she is running for the House seat of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), in a historically Black district being redrawn in Houston, because she believes “we need more gay people — but specifically Black gay people — to run and be in a position to challenge Trump.”

Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, who is running for Colorado treasurer, said it is critical for LGBTQ+ people — especially transgender people like her — to run, including locally. Trump is looking for ways to attack blue state economies, she said, and queer people need to help ensure resistance strategies don’t include abandoning LGBTQ+ rights.

“We’re going to be extorted, and our economy is going to suffer for that, and we’re going to have to withstand that,” she said.

Jordan Wood, who is gay, served as chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County before co-founding the Constitution-backing organization democracyFIRST. He’s now back in his native Maine challenging centrist Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.

Collins, who declined to comment, has supported LGBTQ+ rights in the past, including in military service and marriage, and has at times broken with her party to stand in Trump’s way. However, Wood said Collins has acquiesced to Trump’s autocratic policies, including in recent budget battles.

“This is a moment with our country in crisis where we need our political leaders to pick sides and to stand up to this administration and its lawlessness,” Wood said.

Candidates said they’ve had hateful and threatening comments directed toward them because of their identities, and tough conversations with their families about what it will mean to be a queer elected official in the current political moment. The Victory Institute training included information on how best to handle harassment on the campaign trail.

However, candidates said they also have had young people and others thank them for having the nerve to defend the LGBTQ+ community.

Kevin Morrison, a gay county commissioner in the Chicago suburbs who is running for the House seat of Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who is running for Senate, recently had that experience after defending a transgender high school athlete at a local school board meeting.

Morrison said the response he got from the community, including many of the school’s alumni, was “incredibly positive” — and showed how ready people are for new LGBTQ+ advocates in positions of power who “lead from a place of empathy and compassion.”

In California

LGBTQ+ candidates are running across California — which has been a national leader in electing LGBTQ+ candidates, but never had an out transgender state representative.

Maebe Pudlo, 39, is an operations manager for the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition and an elected member of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council. She is also transgender, and running for the Central and East L.A. state Senate seat of María Elena Durazo, who is running for county supervisor.

Pudlo, who also works as a drag queen, said that simply existing each day is a “political and social statement” for her. But she decided to run for office after seeing policy decisions affecting transgender people made without any transgender voices at the table.

“Unfortunately, our lives have been politicized and trans people have become political pawns, and it’s really disgusting to me,” Pudlo said.

Like every other queer candidate who spoke to The Times, Pudlo, who has previously run for Congress, said her platform is about more than LGBTQ+ issues. It’s also about housing and healthcare and defending democracy more broadly, she said, noting her campaign slogan is “Keep Fascism Out of California.”

Still, Pudlo said she is keenly aware of the current political threats to transgender people, and feels a deep responsibility to defend their rights — for everyone’s sake.

“This whole idea of rolling back civil rights for trans people specifically — that should be concerning for anybody who cares about democracy,” Pudlo said. “Because if they’ll do it to my community, your community is next.”

Juan Camacho, a 44-year-old Echo Park resident also running for Durazo’s seat, said he feels a similar responsibility as a gay Mexican immigrant — particularly as Trump rolls out the “Project 2025 playbook” of attacking immigrants, Latinos and LGBTQ+ people, he said.

Brought to the U.S. by his parents as a toddler before becoming documented under President Reagan’s amnesty program, Camacho said he understands the fear that undocumented and mixed-status families feel, and he wants to use his privilege as a citizen now to push back.

Veteran California legislative leader Toni Atkins, who has long been out and is now running for governor, said the recent attacks on LGBTQ+ and especially transgender people have been “pretty disheartening,” but have also strengthened her resolve — after 50 years of LGBTQ+ people gaining rights in this country — to keep fighting.

“It’s what it’s always been: We want housing and healthcare and we want equal opportunity and we want to be seen as contributing members of society,” she said. “We have a responsibility to be visible and, as Harvey Milk said, to ‘give them hope.’”

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A robot programmed to act like a 7-year-old girl works to combat fear in hospitals

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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Days after Meagan Brazil-Sheehan’s 6-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia, they were walking down the halls of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center when they ran into Robin the Robot.

“Luca, how are you?” it asked in a high-pitched voice programmed to sound like a 7-year-old girl. “It’s been awhile.”

Brazil-Sheehan said they had only met the 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter-tall) robot with a large screen displaying cartoonlike features once before after they were admitted several days earlier.

“His face lit up,” she said about the interaction in June in Worcester, Massachusetts. “It was so special because she remembered him.”

Robin is an artificial intelligence -powered therapeutic robot programed to act like a little girl as it provides emotional support at nursing homes and hospital pediatric units while helping combat staffing shortages. Five years after launching in the U.S., it has become a familiar face in 30 health care facilities in California, Massachusetts, New York and Indiana.

“Nurses and medical staff are really overworked, under a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, a lot of times they don’t have capacity to provide engagement and connection to patients,” said Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, which developed the robot. “Robin helps to alleviate that part from them.”

As AI increasingly becomes a part of daily life, it’s found a foothold in medical care — providing everything from note-taking during exams to electronic nurses. While heralded by some for the efficiency it brings, others worry about its impact on patient care.

Robin is about 30% autonomous, while a team of operators working remotely controls the rest under the watchful eyes of clinical staff. Khachikyan said that with each interaction, they’re able to collect more data — while still complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — and get closer to it being able to function independently.

“Imagine a pure emotional intelligence like WALL-E. We’re trying to create that,” he said, referencing the 2008 animated film.

On a recent Friday, a staff member at HealthBridge Children’s Hospital in Orange County, California, read off a list of patients she needed Robin to visit, along with the amount of time to spend with each one.

The robot with a sleek white triangle-shaped frame that Khachikyan said was designed for hugging, rolled into a room with a teenager injured in a car accident. The robot played what it described as his favorite song — “No Fear” by DeJ Loaf — and he danced along. In the hallway, Robin cracked up a young child held by her mother when it put on a series of silly glasses and a big red nose. In another room, the robot played a simplified version of tic-tac-toe with a patient.

Samantha da Silva, speech language pathologist at the hospital, said patients light up when Robin comes into their room and not only remembers their names but their favorite music.

“She brings joy to everyone,” da Silva said. “She walks down the halls, everyone loves to chat with her, say hello.”

Robin mirrors the emotions of the person it is talking with, explained Khachikyan. If the patient is laughing then the robot laughs along, but if they’re sharing something difficult, its face reflects sadness and empathy.

In nursing homes, Robin plays memory games with people suffering from dementia, takes them through breathing exercises on difficult days and offers them a form of companionship that resembles a grandchild with a grandparent.

Khachikyan recalled a moment last year at a facility in Los Angeles where a woman was having a panic attack and asked specifically for the robot. Robin played songs by her favorite musician and videos of her favorite animal — Elvis Presley and puppies — until she had calmed down.

But with the Association of American Medical Colleges projecting that the U.S. will face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians in the next 11 years, Khachikyan’s vision for Robin goes far beyond this type of support.

He said they’re working to make the robot able to measure patients’ vitals and check to see how they’re doing and then send that information to their medical team. Longer term plans include designing Robin to help elderly patients change their clothes and go to the bathroom.

“Our goal is to design the next evolution of Robin; that Robin will take more and more responsibilities and become even more essential part of care delivery,” Khachikyan said.

He clarified that it’s not about replacing health care workers but about filling in the gaps in the workforce.

At UMass, the robot is very much a part of a team of support for patients. When Luca needed an IV after not getting one in a while, Micaela Cotas, a certified child life specialist came in with the robot and showed him an IV and what was about to happen, and then Robin played a cartoon of it getting an IV put in.

“It just kind of helps show that Robin has gone through those procedures as well, just like a peer,” Cotas said.

Robin was developed by Khachikyan while he was getting his Ph.D. He said growing up in a single-parent household in Armenia had been lonely, so years later he wanted to build a type of robot that could act as a person’s friend.

Developers tested it in a variety of industries before an investor suggested that pediatric hospitals would be a good fit because of the stress and loneliness children often feel.

“That was kind of an aha moment,” he said. “We decided, OK let’s try it.”

They had success introducing it at a pediatric hospital in Armenia and by 2020 launched a pilot program at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital.

Since Robin was created, its personality and character have changed significantly based on the responses from people it interacts with.

Khachikyan gave the example of Robin’s answer to the question: “What is your favorite animal.” Initially they tried having the robot respond with dog. They also tried cat. But when they tried chicken, the children cracked up. So they stuck with it.

“We created Robin’s personality by really taking users into the equation,” he said. “So we often say that Robin was designed by users.”

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Associated Press journalist Damian Dovarganes contributed to this report.

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After cuts to food stamps, Trump administration ends government’s annual report on hunger in America

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is ending the federal government’s annual report on hunger in America, stating that it had become “overly politicized” and “rife with inaccuracies.”

The decision comes two and a half months after President Donald Trump signed legislation sharply reducing food aid to the poor. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the tax and spending cuts bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July means 3 million people would not qualify for food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits.

The decision to scrap the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security Report was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In a press release Saturday, the USDA said the 2024 report, to be released Oct. 22, would be the last.

“The questions used to collect the data are entirely subjective and do not present an accurate picture of actual food security,” the USDA said. ”The data is rife with inaccuracies slanted to create a narrative that is not representative of what is actually happening in the countryside as we are currently experiencing lower poverty rates, increasing wages, and job growth under the Trump Administration.”

The Census Bureau reported earlier this month that the U.S. poverty rate dipped from 11% in 2023 to 10.6% last year, before Trump took office.

Critics were quick to accuse the administration of deliberately making it harder to measure hunger and assess the impact of its cuts to food stamps.

“Trump is cancelling an annual government survey that measures hunger in America, rather than allow it to show hunger increasing under his tenure,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said on social media. “This follows the playbook of many non-democracies that cancel or manipulate reports that would otherwise show less-than-perfect news.”

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California bans masks for most law enforcement officers

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while conducting official business under a bill that was signed Saturday by Gov. Gavin Newsom and swiftly denounced by Trump administration officials.

The ban is a direct response to recent immigration raids in Los Angeles, where federal agents wore masks while making mass arrests. The raids prompted days of protest and led President Donald Trump to deploy National Guard troops and Marines to the area.

Newsom said at a news conference in Los Angeles, where he signed the bill flanked by state lawmakers, education leaders and immigrant community members, that California is unique in that 27% of its residents are foreign born.

“We celebrate that diversity. It’s what makes California great. It’s what makes America great. It is under assault,” he said.

The Democratic governor said the state is pushing back against the practice of masked agents without identification or badge numbers detaining people on the streets.

“The impact of these policies all across this city, our state and nation are terrifying,” Newsom said. “It’s like a dystopian sci-fi movie. Unmarked cars, people in masks, people quite literally disappearing. No due process, no rights, no right in a democracy where we have rights. Immigrants have rights, and we have the right to stand up and push back, and that’s what we’re doing here today.”

But it’s unclear how — or whether — the state can enforce the ban on federal agents.

Trump administration officials have defended use of masks, saying immigration agents face strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they carry out enforcement in service of Trump’s drive toward mass deportation. Obscuring their identities is necessary for the safety of the agents and their families, officials contend.

Bill Essayli, acting U.S. attorney for Southern California, said on the social platform X that the state does not have jurisdiction over the federal government and he has told agencies the mask ban has no effect on their operations. “Our agents will continue to protect their identities,” he said.

Essayli also criticized Newsom’s comment on X saying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was “going to have a bad day today,” adding that there is zero tolerance for “direct or implicit threats against government officials.” He referred the matter to the Secret Service, which said in a statement, also on X, that it could not comment on the specific case but must investigate any potential threat.

Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs, called it “despicable and a flagrant attempt to endanger our officers.”

“While our federal law enforcement officers are being assaulted by rioters and having rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at them, a sanctuary politician is trying to outlaw officers wearing masks to protect themselves from being doxxed and targeted by known and suspected terrorist sympathizers,” she said via email.

The men and women of federal immigration agencies put their lives on the line to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens, she said, and rhetoric like Newsom’s has contributed to a surge in assaults.

Newsom countered that concerns about doxing agents, or publishing their personal information online, are unfounded and unproven.

“There’s an assertion that somehow there is an exponential increase in assaults on officers, but they will not provide the data,” he said. “All they have provided is misinformation and misdirection.”

The new law prohibits neck gaiters, ski masks and other facial coverings for local and federal officers, including immigration enforcement agents, while they conduct official business. It makes exceptions for undercover agents, medical masks such as N95 respirators or tactical gear, and it does not apply to state police.

Democrats in Congress and lawmakers in several states, including Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, have introduced similar proposals calling for mask bans.

Proponents of the California law said it is especially needed after the Supreme Court ruled this month that the Trump administration can resume its sweeping immigration operations in Los Angeles. The law aims to boost public trust in law enforcement and stop people from impersonating officers to commit crimes, supporters said.

Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky at the University of California, Berkeley, also defended the legislation. Federal employees still have to follow general state rules “unless doing so would significantly interfere with the performance of their duties. For example, while on the job, federal employees must stop at red lights,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee.

Newsom also signed legislation Saturday preventing immigration agents from entering schools and health care facilities without a valid warrant or judicial order and requiring schools to notify parents and teachers when agents are on campus.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, said “students cannot learn if they live in fear of being deported. The California Safe Haven Schools Act is a clear message to Donald Trump: ‘keep ICE out of our schools.’”

Earlier this year the Legislature also authorized giving $50 million to California’s Department of Justice and other legal groups, which has resulted in more than 40 lawsuits against the Trump administration.

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After cuts to food stamps, Trump administration ends government’s annual report on hunger in America

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is ending the federal government’s annual report on hunger in America, stating that it had become “overly politicized” and “rife with inaccuracies.”

The decision to scrap the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security Report was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In a press release Saturday, the USDA said the 2024 report, to be released Oct. 22, would be the last.

The Census Bureau reported earlier this month that the U.S. poverty rate dipped from 11% in 2023 to 10.6% last year, before Trump took office.

Critics were quick to accuse the administration of deliberately making it harder to measure hunger and assess the impact of its cuts to food stamps.

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Taliban reject Trump’s bid to retake Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan — The Taliban government on Sunday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to retake Bagram Air Base, four years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan left the sprawling military facility in the Taliban hands.

It is unclear what conversations the U.S. has had with Afghan officials about returning to the country. But Trump hinted that the Taliban, who have struggled with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and rival militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be open to allowing the U.S. military back.

The chief Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected Trump’s assertions and urged the U.S. to adopt a policy of “realism and rationality.” Afghanistan had an economy-oriented foreign policy and sought constructive relations with all states on the basis of mutual and shared interests, Mujahid posted on X.

It had been consistently communicated to the U.S. in all bilateral negotiations that Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity were of the utmost importance, he said.

“It should be recalled that, under the Doha Agreement, the United States pledged that ‘it will not use or threaten force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan, nor interfere in its internal affairs,’” he said. The U.S. needed to remain faithful to its commitments, he added.

Mujahid did not reply to questions from The Associated Press about conversations with the Trump administration regarding Bagram and why Trump believed the U.S. could retake it.

In August last year, the Taliban celebrated the third anniversary of their takeover at Bagram with a grand military display of abandoned U.S. hardware, catching the eye of the White House. Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for his “gross incompetence” during the withdrawal of U.S. forces after the country’s longest war.

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Trump administration to add $100,000 fee for H-1B visas

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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The Trump administration is adding $100,000 to the existing fee for H-1B visa applications, taking aim at a program that is used to attract highly skilled workers to the U.S.

President Trump signed a proclamation late Friday adding the new visa application fee and barring H-1B workers from entering the U.S. unless they had made the $100,000 payment.

“We’re going to be able to keep people in our country that are going to be very productive people, and in many cases these companies are going to pay a lot of money for that, and they’re very happy about it,” Mr. Trump said.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson clarified to CBS News in an email Saturday that the fee “does not apply to anyone who has a current visa,” and “only applies to future applicants in the February [2026] lottery who are currently outside the U.S. It does not apply to anyone who participated in the 2025 lottery.”

“The Proclamation does not impact the ability of any current visa holder to travel to/from the U.S.,” Jackson said.

A White House official told CBS News Saturday that the $100,000 is a one-time fee that only applies to new visas and is not an annual payment. It does not apply to renewals or current visa holders, the official said.

This comes after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had told reporters Friday that the fee was “annual.”

“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down wages,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told CBS News in a statement Saturday. “It also gives certainty to American businesses who actually want to bring high-skilled workers to our great country but have been trampled on by abuses of the system.”

The additional charge would impact employers including technology giants such as Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Google, which have relied on the program to hire foreign workers.

The plan was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

H-1B visas are already expensive, with the cost ranging from about $1,700 to $4,500, depending on whether the visa is expedited. The fees are typically considered a business expense for the employer.

The new fee comes amid a debate over the H-1B visa, which some critics say enables companies to hire foreign applicants at lower salaries than American workers. Some employers also award H-1Bs for entry-level roles rather than for senior positions with greater skill requirements, detractors of the program say.

Tech companies have been among the primary beneficiaries of the visa program. Amazon received the most H1-B visas of any business in 2024, Department of Labor data shows. This year, the online retailer remains the leading recipient of the visas, with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google.

“This will ensure that the people they’re bringing in are actually very highly skilled and that they’re not replaceable by American workers. So it’ll protect American workers, but ensure that companies have a pathway to hire truly extraordinary people and bring them to the United States,” a White House aide said.

Still, Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research group, said the plan could backfire if it incentivizes U.S. companies to shift jobs overseas, especially in specialized areas like research and development.

“The second impact will further decrease the number of international students who have an interest in coming to study in the U.S. If there’s no opportunity work in the U.S., it’s much less likely they’ll enroll in U.S. programs,” Anderson told CBS News.

Last year, the most popular type of job for H-1B visas was software developer. To receive an H-1B visa, which is awarded by lottery, an applicant needs to have at least a bachelor’s degree in their field and have been offered a temporary job by a U.S. company.

President Trump plans to order the Labor Secretary to start a new rule-making process that would update wage levels for the program, Bloomberg reported. Currently, U.S. companies must offer the prevailing wage or the actual wage of similarly qualified workers, whichever is higher, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The program is capped at 65,000 new visas each year, although an additional 20,000 can be issued for employees with a master’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The cap and higher-degree exemption quota is already filled for fiscal year 2026, according to the USCIS.

The H-1B program is already the most restrictive visa program in the U.S., with about 20% of applications resulting in approved workers, according to a March study from the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy.

— With reporting by Aaron Navarro.

Grace Kazarian,

Jennifer Jacobs and

The Associated Press

contributed to this report.

Aimee Picchi

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Texas teen uses computer science to fight scammers

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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Plano, Texas — In many ways, Tejasvi Manoj of Plano, Texas, is an average 17-year-old.

“You’ve got to balance, like, all of your classes, and then you have college applications as well,” Manoj told CBS News.

But she’s spending much of her senior year of high school with a different type of senior, visiting older adult community centers, where she teaches them how to avoid being financially scammed.

Her calling started last year when Manoj’s grandfather was the target of a scam effort in which he received a text message from someone pretending to be a family member, claiming an emergency and asking him to wire $2,000 to a bank account.

Fortunately, Manoj’s grandfather and grandmother contacted family members and discovered the scam before wiring the money.

But the event was alarming to Manoj, who began researching and subsequently building a website and app called Shield Seniors, which shows what online scams look like and how to report them.

In July, she did a TEDx talk. And this week, she made the cover of Time magazine as its “Kid of the Year.”

“So I found out 12 hours before the article released,” Manoj said. “I was in so much shock. It was the greatest surprise of my life, honestly.”

Manoj says her research shows scammers are increasingly using artificial intelligence.

“There are so many people who are using AI to make scams seem more real,” Manoj said.

These frauds are becoming increasingly common. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, people 60 and over who reported scams in 2024 lost a total of $4.8 billion — double the losses from just five years ago.

“Particularly when you’re older, you feel more vulnerable,” one woman who attended one of Manoj’s classes explained. “I think too, as you get older, you become less, computer savvy.”

Her app, which utilizes AI, allows users to detect potential scam efforts.

“So here I can add, like, a text message,” Manoj explains as she shows her website. “And then I can press ‘please identify whether this is a threat.’ So it’s saying that this request seems suspicious.”

Manoj has taken some computer science courses, but she said she mostly learned everything about coding and AI on YouTube.

“Obviously, my mission is to make sure older adults are aware of cybersecurity,” Manoj said. “And they shouldn’t be embarrassed about asking for help.”

She says her long-term plans involve continuing her work on Shield Seniors, but also finding ways to use “tech for social good.”

Manoj is still looking for funding for her app. She hopes landing the cover of Time will allow her to launch Shield Seniors by the end of the year.

Karen Hua

Karen Hua is a CBS News national reporter based in Houston.

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Sacramento ABC TV station building struck by gunfire, police say

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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A man has been arrested in connection with a shooting at a television station building in Sacramento faces a federal charge and is back in custody after being arrested by the FBI on Saturday.

Anibal Hernandez-Santana, 64, was arrested by the Sacramento Police Department on three charges related to a drive-by shooting at the ABC10 building in Sacramento on Friday.

He was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied building, and negligent discharge of a firearm, according to the Sacramento Police Department. By Saturday afternoon, Hernandez-Santana was released on bail, listed as $200K.

Hernandez-Santana was arrested later the same day by the FBI, a spokesperson confirms to CBS Sacramento, on probable cause for violating federal statute 47 USC 333 after he discharged three rounds from a firearm into the lobby of ABC10.

Hernandez-Santana is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court in Sacramento on Monday. He will make his first appearance on the local charges in Sacramento on Tuesday.

Sacramento police say officers responded to the 400 block of Broadway, the ABC10 building, just after 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday to investigate reports of shots fired. At the scene, police say officers found that the building had been struck by gunfire. Police say at least three rounds struck the building, apparently hitting a window. No injuries were reported.

Police classified the incident as a drive-by shooting, saying it appeared a vehicle drove by the building, fired, then drove away.

On Saturday morning, the Sacramento Police Department told CBS News that identifying the vehicle had led them to Anibal Hernandez-Santana, 64. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Saturday afternoon that Hernandez-Santana was released on a $200,000 bail, but was later arrested by the FBI on a federal charge. He is in federal custody as of Saturday night.

The motive for the shooting remains under investigation, the department said.

The apparent bullet holes seen in the window of the ABC10 building.

KXTV Channel 10 is an ABC affiliate station owned by Tegna. ABC sparked controversy this week when it suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after the host’s comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.

“We haven’t had a lot of attacks on our media partners, and we’d like to keep it that way,” said Anthony Gamble, a public information officer for the Sacramento Police Department. “This is unacceptable behavior. And so you know, to those that may have been responsible for this, and I hope you see this, we’re not going to stop looking for you. This is unacceptable behavior. It’s not going to be tolerated in Sacramento.”

“While details are still limited, importantly all of our employees are safe and unharmed,” said Molly McMahon, a spokesperson for Tegna. “We are fully cooperating with law enforcement and have taken additional measures to ensure the continued safety of our employees.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office issued a statement on X after the governor was briefed on the shooting.

“While no injuries have been reported, any act of violence toward journalists is an attack on our democracy itself and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Newsom’s office said. “We stand with reporters and staff who work every day to keep communities informed and safe!”

Cecilio Padilla

Cecilio Padilla is a digital producer for CBS Sacramento and a Sacramento-area native who has been covering Northern California for more than a decade.

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Trump nominates replacement for acting U.S. attorney in office probing Letitia James

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Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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President Trump said Saturday that he would be nominating senior White House aide Lindsey Halligan to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the Virginia office that was thrown into turmoil when its U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, abruptly left on Friday.

In a social media post just after he departed the White House for an event at Mount Vernon, Mr. Trump wrote he would be nominating Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, writing that she “will be Fair, Smart, and will provide, desperately needed, JUSTICE FOR ALL!”

Mr. Trump’s selection of Halligan came just hours after another conservative lawyer, Mary “Maggie” Cleary, said in an email to staff that was obtained by CBS News that she had been named acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

“While this appointment was unexpected, I am humbled to be joining your ranks,” Cleary told employees in the email. “The Eastern District of Virginia has a distinguished legacy upon which we will build.”

CBS News has reached out to the White House for clarification on whether Cleary or Halligan will be leading the Eastern District of Virginia while Halligan’s Senate nomination process plays out.

Halligan has been part of Mr. Trump’s legal orbit for the last several years, including serving as one of his attorneys in the early days of the FBI’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which President Trump referenced in a follow-up Truth Social post later Saturday evening.

“Lindsey is a tough, smart, and loyal attorney, who has worked with me for a long time, including in the winning fight against the Weaponization of our Justice System by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, which she witnessed firsthand when she stood up for my rights during the Unconstitutional and UnAmerican raid on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida,” Mr. Trump wrote.

She has more recently been enlisted in a White House effort to remove what the administration contends is “improper ideology” from Smithsonian properties.

Lindsey Halligan, senior White House aide for President Trump, holds ceremonial proclamations to be signed by Mr. Trump, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 6, 2025.

Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Siebert resigned amid pressure from Trump administration officials to bring criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James in a mortgage fraud investigation. Multiple sources had told CBS News Friday that federal prosecutors for the district were concerned that Siebert could be removed for failing to prosecute James.

Mr. Trump did not push back on those concerns, saying Friday, “Yeah, I want him out.”

Halligan would take over an office in tumult over political pressure by administration officials to criminally charge James, a longtime foe of Mr. Trump. In May, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News that the Justice Department had launched a criminal fraud probe targeting James.

The investigation stems from allegations that James provided false information on mortgage applications to get better loan rates for a home in Virginia.

The Justice Department has spent months conducting the investigation but has yet to bring charges, and there’s been no indication that prosecutors have managed to uncover any degree of incriminating evidence necessary to secure an indictment. James’ lawyers have vigorously denied any allegations and characterized the investigation as an act of political revenge.

In 2022, James sued Mr. Trump for years of alleged financial fraud, claiming Mr. Trump and his family participated in a conspiracy to inflate his net worth by billions of dollars in order to secure better loan rates, among other things. A judge found them liable and ultimately ruled Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization must pay $354 million in fines, though the actual total recently climbed to above $500 million due to interest amid the appeals process. In August, a New York appellate court threw out the half-billion-dollar penalty, ruling that the fine was “excessive,” while saying they were divided on the merits of the case.

While Siebert said in an email to colleagues Friday evening that he had submitted his resignation, Trump wrote in a social media post: “He didn’t quit, I fired him!”

Mr. Trump wrote Saturday that he “withdrew” Siebert’s nomination for U.S. attorney when he “was informed” that Siebert had “received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support” of Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia. Both senators had expressed support for Siebert’s nomination back in May.

“What is Trump focused on?” the two senators wrote in a joint statement Friday. “Threatening to pull anyone who criticizes him on TV off the air. And now, pushing out the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia that we recommended and he himself nominated because Erik Siebert is an ethical prosecutor who refused to bring criminal charges against Trump’s perceived enemies when the facts wouldn’t support it.”

The president reiterated his statement that he fired Siebert in a separate Truth Social post Saturday, writing that Siebert “lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so.”

In that post, Mr. Trump also praised Halligan as a “really good lawyer.” A little over one hour later, he had announced that he would be nominating her to lead the Eastern District of Virginia.

Cleary recently rejoined the Justice Department as a senior counsel in the criminal division after working as a prosecutor in the Culpepper Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. She also worked as deputy secretary of public safety in Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration and later served in Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office.

Cleary wrote in an article for The Spectator World earlier this year about being wrongly identified in a photo which allegedly placed her on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot. Cleary, who at the time was working as a federal prosecutor in the Western District of Virginia, wrote: “Everyone knew I was a conservative. It was all over my resume. I was in leadership in my local Republican Committee. But I had not gone to the Capitol that day.”

She described being placed on administrative leave and interviewed by agents before later being cleared to return to work.

“In the last four years, I’ve been somewhat cautious about sharing my experience, but now, while Donald Trump is president, I feel emboldened to finally tell how, I, too, was targeted politically,” Cleary wrote.

At the time the article was published in May, she was interviewing to serve as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia. Cleary said she wanted that job “to end this type of treatment.”

Scott MacFarlane

contributed to this report.

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New initiative launches in LA to monitor and film immigration enforcement operations – Orange County Register

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Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of people gathered at MacArthur Park on Saturday for the launch of a community initiative to monitor federal enforcement of suspected illegal immigration.

The Save America Movement is described as “a rapid-response and civic empowerment initiative to ensure the American people have a clear understanding of the actions and impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in our communities while providing support to impacted communities.”

Organizers plan to have trained camera crews and volunteers help capture ICE operations as they’re happening. The group unveiled three specially outfitted vans Saturday, dubbed Liberty Van One, Two, and Three, which will be staffed by trained volunteers, including lawyers, clergy, veterans and videographers.

“Los Angeles will always stand with families under threat,” Mayor Karen Bass said. “Angelenos are showing the country that when our communities are targeted, we respond with solidarity, with resources, and with an unbreakable commitment to justice.”

President Donald Trump, while campaigning, promised safety and security. He promised that changes to immigration policy would target criminals. His campaign, he said, was intended to rid the country of people he has called murderers, terrorists, drug dealers, animals -– “the worst they have in every country, all over the world.”

Critics, however, have called the government’s mass deportation campaign inhumane.

In the coming weeks, organizers will be recruiting and training volunteers to staff the Save America Movement vehicles, to be deployed in early October.

More information can be found at thesaveamericamovement.org

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Mike Trout blasts 400th career homer as Angels snap 8-game losing streak – Press Enterprise

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Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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DENVER — Mike Trout swung the bat and watched the baseball sail into the night, taking with it much of the frustration that had been building inside of him for more than a month.

The Angels superstar slugged the 400th homer of his career, punctuating a 3-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night.

It had been nine days since Trout hit No. 399, and six weeks since he hit No. 398. Between those two homers, he endured the longest drought of his career, spanning 28 games.

The milestone came in the eighth inning, on a 3-and-1 sinker from right-hander Jaden Hill. The ball sailed into the seats in straightaway center field. It traveled 485 feet, his longest homer of the season and the third longest of his career.

It was certainly a relief for the rest of the team, too, because the blast provided an insurance run to help the Angels (70-85) snap their eight-game losing streak. It was the Angels’ longest losing streak in three years.

Trout, 34, became the 59th player in major league history to reach the 400-homer milestone. Trout is the third player to hit No. 400 while wearing an Angels’ uniform, joining Dave Winfield (in 1991) and Vladimir Guerrero (2009).

The blast came with just over a week left in what has been a trying season for Trout. Although he’s played more games (124) than in any season since 2019, his numbers have not been up to his standard. He’s hitting .229 with a .772 OPS. He has 22 homers this season.

His milestone on Saturday stole the spotlight from right-hander Kyle Hendricks, who pitched seven innings to get the victory in his 300th career start.

Hendricks now has a 2.74 ERA in seven career starts at Coors Field, which is the most hitter-friendly environment in the majors.

Hendricks struck out five and didn’t walk any, scattering just three singles. He mostly kept the ball on the ground, and the infield defense took care of the rest.

Second baseman Christian Moore made a sensational backhand stop up the middle. Third baseman Yoán Moncada made the only error, and Hendricks responded by easily retiring the next three, who happened to be the top three in the Rockies order.

Hendricks was coming off one of the worst outings of his career, a game in which he allowed nine runs in 3⅓ innings in Seattle. That game came just after his best start of the season, seven scoreless innings against the Minnesota Twins.

Hendricks needed to be good because the Angels didn’t produce much either.

They hit three solo homers, with Taylor Ward (No. 34) and Nolan Schanuel (No. 11) connecting before Trout.

More to come on this story.

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His cell-mates self-deported. He fought to get back to his family

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Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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The lights never dimmed and Angel Minguela Palacios couldn’t sleep. He pulled what felt like a large sheet of aluminum foil over his head, but couldn’t adjust to lying on a concrete floor and using his tennis shoes as a pillow.

He could smell unwashed bodies in the cramped room he shared with 40 detainees. He listened as men, many of them arrested at car washes or outside Home Depots, cried in the night for their loved ones.

Minguela, 48, lay in the chilly downtown Los Angeles ICE facility known as B 18 and thought about his partner of eight years and their three children. In his 10 years in the United States, he had built a secure life he had only dreamed of in Mexico, ensconced in their humble one-bedroom rented home, framed photos of the family at Christmas, his “#1 Dad” figurine. Now it was all falling apart.

The morning of Aug. 14, Minguela had been on his last delivery of the day, dropping off strawberries to a tearoom in Little Tokyo. He didn’t know that Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a news conference there to inveigh against President Trump’s efforts to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting in Texas. U.S. Border Patrol agents were massing nearby, creating a show of force outside the event.

As they moved in, one agent narrowed in on Minguela’s delivery van. Soon, he was in handcuffs, arrested for overstaying a tourist visa. As his lawyer put it, Minguela became “political, collateral damage.”

Over the six days he spent in B 18, a temporary immigration processing center, Minguela watched as several detainees chose to self-deport rather than remain in detention.

”No aguanto aqui,” the men would say. “I can’t take it here.”

The harsh conditions, Minguela said, felt intentional. He knew he needed to stay for his family. But he wondered if he’d make it.

Minguela fled Mexico in 2015, driven in part by violence he faced there.

In his time servicing ATMs in Ciudad Juárez, he said he was kidnapped twice and at one point stabbed by people intent on stealing the cash. After his employers cut staff, he lost his job, helping drive his decision to leave.

Minguela came to Texas on a tourist visa and left the same day to L.A. drawn by the job opportunities and its many Spanish speakers. He had little money, rented a room as he searched for employment and soon found a job at the downtown produce market.

He met the woman he calls his esposa, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, at the second job he worked in the Piñata District. They are not married but Minguela helped raise her two children and later their son, who is autistic. The children — 15, 12 and 6 — all call him Dad.

With Minguela there, his esposa said she never felt alone. He helped with the laundry and cleaning. He played Roblox with his middle son and helped his 15-year-old daughter with her homework, especially math.

“He would always make sure that we would stay on track,” his daughter said. “He would always want the best for us.”

Photos captured the life they had built in L.A. The family in San Pedro for a boat ride. Celebrating Father’s Day and birthdays with cake and balloons. At a Day of the Dead celebration on Olvera Street downtown.

When immigration raids began in June, their lives suddenly narrowed. Minguela rarely went out, leaving the house only for work and errands. His daughter would warn him if she heard rumors of immigration officers near her high school, so he wouldn’t risk picking her up.

Minguela planned ahead, made copies of his keys and left money for his family in case he was grabbed by immigration agents. But he never expected it would happen to him.

On Aug. 14, his alarm went off at 1:15 a.m., as it did almost every day. He drank the coffee his wife had brought him as he headed to the produce market, where he’d worked for the same company for eight years.

Minguela helped take orders of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, before heading out to make deliveries around 8 a.m. He had around half a dozen places to hit before he would call it a day.

His partner called to warn him that she’d seen on social media that ICE officers were near one of his delivery spots. He had just been there and luckily missed them, he said.

He was relieved that the Little Tokyo tearoom was his last stop. It didn’t open until 11 a.m. He arrived 10 minutes after. He found a parking spot out front and began unloading the boxes of strawberries and one box of apples.

Minguela was adjusting wooden pallets in the van when he heard a knock. He turned to see a Border Patrol agent, who began asking him about his legal status. Rather than answer, Minguela said he pulled a red “know your rights” card out of his wallet and handed it to the agent.

The agent told him it was “of no use” and handed it back. As he held his wallet, Minguela said the agent demanded his license. After running his information, Minguela said, the agent placed him in handcuffs.

Inside B 18, the lights never turned off. No matter the hour, officers would call detainees out of the room for interviews, making it difficult to get uninterrupted sleep, Minguela recounted. The temperature was so cold, family members dropped off sweaters and jackets for loved ones.

The detainees were given thin, shiny emergency blankets to sleep with. He described them as “aluminum sheets.” As the days passed, he said, even those ran out for new detainees. The bathrooms were open-air, providing no privacy. Detainees went days without showering.

The conditions, he said, felt intentional. A form of “pressure to get people to sign to leave.”

Department of Homeland Security officials have previously told The Times that “any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

When Minguela closed his eyes, he saw the faces of his family. He wondered how his esposa would keep them afloat all alone. He wanted to believe this was just a nightmare from which he would soon awaken.

He replayed the morning events over and over in his head. What if he had gotten to Little Tokyo five minutes earlier? Five minutes later?

“Those days were the hardest,” Minguela said. “My first day there on the floor, I cried. It doesn’t matter that you’re men, it doesn’t matter your age. There, men cried.”

The men talked among themselves, most worrying about their wives and children. They shared where they’d been taken from. Minguela estimated that around 80% of people he was held with had been detained at car washes and Home Depot. Others had been arrested while leaving court hearings.

Minguela said he’d only been asked once, on his second day, if he wanted to self-deport. He said no. But he watched as several others gave up and signed to leave. Minguela hoped he’d be sent to Adelanto, a nearby detention center. He’d heard it might be harder to get bond in Texas or Arizona.

On the sixth day, around 4 a.m., Minguela and more than 20 others had been pulled out of the room and shackled. He only learned he was going to Arizona after overhearing a conversation between two guards.

It felt, Minguela said, “like the world came crashing down on me.”

The 25 detainees were loaded onto a white bus and spent around 10 hours on the road, before arriving at a detention center near Casa Grande. When Minguela saw it for the first time, in the desert where the temperature was hitting 110 degrees, he felt afraid. It looked like a prison.

“Ay caray, adonde nos trajeron,” he thought. Wow, where did they bring us?

There were around 50 people in Minguela’s wing. His cell mate, an African immigrant, had been fighting his asylum case for five months, hoping to get to his family in Seattle.

For the first time since his youth, Minguela had time to read books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “No One Writes to the Colonel.” He read the Bible, taking comfort in Psalm 91, a prayer of trust and protection. He took online courses on CPR, computer skills and how to process his emotions.

But all the distractions, he said, didn’t change the fact that detainees were imprisoned.

“Lo que mata es el encierro,” Minguela said. “What kills you is the confinement.”

Almost everyone there, Minguela said, had arrived with the intention of fighting their case. There were detainees who had been there for a year fighting to get asylum, others for eight months. Some had been arrested despite having work permits. Others had been scammed out of thousands of dollars by immigration lawyers who never showed up for their court hearings. Many decided to self-deport.

If he wasn’t granted bond, Minguela told his partner he feared he might do that in a moment of desperation.

Minguela lay in his darkened cell, reflecting on moments when he had arrived home, tired from work and traffic, and scolded his children about minor messes. About times he’d argued with his wife and given her the silent treatment. He made promises to God to be an even better husband and father. He asked that God help his lawyer on his case and to give him a fair judge.

Minguela had his bond hearing Sept. 9. He was aided by the fact that he had entered the country lawfully, providing the judge the ability to either grant or deny him bond.

Alex Galvez, Minguela’s lawyer, told the judge about his client’s children. He pointed out that Minguela didn’t have a criminal record and was gainfully employed, the primary breadwinner for his family. Galvez submitted 16 letters of recommendation for his client.

When the government lawyer referred to Minguela as a flight risk, Galvez said, the judge appeared skeptical, pointing out that he’d been paying tens of thousands of dollars in taxes for the last 10 years.

The judge granted a $1,500 bond. Minguela’s employers at the produce company paid it. When Minguela was pulled out of his cell on the night of Sept. 17, the other detainees applauded.

“Bravo,” they shouted. “Echale ganas.” Give it your all.

A crowd of people waited to greet Minguela as soon as he stepped off a Greyhound bus at Union Station in downtown L.A. on Thursday night. His partner and their three children all wore black shirts that read “Welcome Home.”

Minguela’s employer, Martha Franco, her son, Carlos Franco, and her nephew held “Welcome Back” balloons and flowers.

“He’s coming,” the children cried, when the bus groaned to a halt at 9:35 p.m. When Minguela spotted the waiting crowd, he beamed. His youngest son jumped up and down with anticipation as he stepped off the bus.

“Estas contento,” Minguela asked the boy. “Are you happy?”

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He held his esposa tight, kissing her on the cheeks, the forehead and the lips.

Minguela knows his release is just a step in the journey. His lawyer plans to file for cancellation of his removal and hopes to secure him a work permit. Minguela said he wants other immigrants to know that “there’s hope and not to despair.”

“Have faith,” Minguela said.

When Minguela arrived home after 10 p.m., he clasped his face in surprise as he was greeted by more than a hundred red, gold and black balloons. Signs strung up around the living room read “God loves you” and “Welcome home we missed you so much.”

His partner had decorated and bought everything to make ceviche and albondigas to celebrate his return. But she hadn’t had time that day to cook. Instead, she bought him one of his favorites in his adopted home.

An In-N-Out Double-Double burger and fries.

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Police kill carjacking suspect outside In-N-Out Burger in Laguna Hills

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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A man suspected of fatally shooting a woman outside an apartment complex in Carlsbad and stealing her SUV late Friday died early Saturday in a shootout with police in front of an In-N-Out Burger in Orange County.

Video taken at the restaurant on 24001 Avenida de La Carlota in Laguna Hills show people inside the restaurant running for cover. Patrons outside crouched under tables as dozens of gunshots rang out from the suspect and officers exchanging fire around 1 a.m.

One video briefly shows a man with short, dark hair and a red shirt running from the stolen vehicle in the middle of the street toward the restaurant, with his hands apparently pointing toward the officers.

Orange County sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Gerard McCann said he couldn’t comment on how many officers were involved in the shooting or how many rounds were fired by officers and the suspect. The department shared photos of a semiautomatic handgun with a wrapped grip and attached flashlight that authorities say belonged to the suspect, who has not been identified.

The situation began around 9:53 p.m. Friday in Carlsbad when police responded to a report of gunfire in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 2300 block of Rising Glen Way. When officers arrived, they found a woman with multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, according to Carlsbad police.

The woman’s maroon Kia Sorento had been stolen, and the department sent the license plate number to surrounding jurisdictions in the hope of finding the suspect and the vehicle, police said.

At 12:18 a.m., the Laguna Beach Police Department “received notification from a license plate reader at El Toro Road and Laguna Canyon Road that the vehicle was entering their city,” according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Department news release.

About 37 minutes later, officers in Newport Beach spotted the stolen vehicle near Newport Coast Drive and Pacific Coast Highway. The suspect did not stop when officers tried to pull the car over, and during the ensuing pursuit, an Irvine Police Department K-9 unit joined the chase, authorities said.

The pursuit continued to the southbound 5 Freeway, according to the sheriff’s news release, where the suspect exited at El Toro Road, drove through a business complex and headed north on El Toro Road.

Police said the suspect stopped the car in the middle of the El Toro Road, just south of Avenida De La Carlota, got out of the vehicle and started firing at approaching police cars.

The suspect was taken to Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, where he was pronounced dead, McCann said.

The identity of the woman who was killed in Carlsbad has not been released. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the pursuit and shooting.

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After L.A. wildfires, David E. Kelly is all in on California

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 21, 2025

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Filming was about to start on David E. Kelley’s Apple TV+ series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” in early January when the wildfires hit the Los Angeles area, devastating Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Crew members lost their homes or were dealing with severe smoke damage. Others on the show took people who were displaced into their houses.

To add to the uncertainty, the series was still waiting to hear whether it would receive a state film and television tax credit.

It was time for a decision, Kelley and his fellow producers thought. Should they play it safe and relocate to a cheaper filming locale, such as New Mexico or Vancouver, to ensure they had the budget to film the pivotal mid-season finale in Las Vegas?

They took a gamble and decided to stay in California. The bet paid off. “Margo” got a tax credit of about $1.2 million per episode, and the show was able to shoot both in the Los Angeles area and travel to Las Vegas for four days of filming.

“The rest of the story is a California story,” said Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions. “It’s really magical to leave L.A., go to Vegas and then come back, and it gives the show a huge production value that otherwise, we wouldn’t have had.”

As film and TV projects have increasingly moved out of state in search of better tax incentives and cheaper costs — moves that have culled the number of Hollywood jobs — Kelley’s production company is doubling down on California. The former attorney turned writer-producer is one of the biggest names in TV behind such legal dramas as “Ally McBeal” and “The Practice.”

All of his current projects will shoot in L.A., including the third season of HBO series “Big Little Lies,” the legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer,” a new HBO Max series based on a Michael Connelly book called “Nightshade” that takes place on Santa Catalina Island, and the thriller “Presumed Innocent.”

Post-production work for his shows also is done in L.A. Kelley’s company, known as David E. Kelley Productions, also recently moved into a new headquarters in Santa Monica, where it plans to make a home for the foreseeable future.

“It just feels wrong to me that L.A. is not continuing to be the epicenter for film and television series,” Kelley said via Zoom in August. “This town has been very good to me for many, many years, so I have an inclination not to abandon it, to cling to the community that has been so rewarding for me.”

The sentiment is shared by his second-in-command.

From the concrete rooftop garden atop the Santa Monica building that houses Kelley’s production office, Tinker looked out at the hills, remembering the wall of smoke that lingered for days.

The January wildfires also encouraged the decision to keep Kelley’s production company in L.A., despite some pitches to move out of state. At the time, there had been industry chatter that the state’s incentive program would be bolstered, giving some optimism for the future of production in the state. But after the fires, there was no question. The company saw the need to rebuild and reinvest in L.A. and Hollywood. The eventual boost to the state’s film and TV tax credit program approved this summer solidified their decision.

“The fires challenged our resilience and sense of community, but the people of L.A. rallied,” Tinker said. “There simply wasn’t a thought beyond this moment to plant roots anywhere else.”

The 2,900-square-foot office, which is a new build that replaced an older building in Santa Monica, is sleek and modern, with concrete walls and flooring, dark wood details, two arcade game machines and a shelving unit holding dozens of awards right at the heart of the space. Inside Tinker’s office is an homage to Hollywood history.

An old sign from Kelley’s previous offices at the Fox lot hangs on the wall, next to the title page for the first episode of “Margo,” addressed to David and signed by actor Elle Fanning. A photo of Ronald Reagan with Matthew Tinker’s late grandfather Grant Tinker, former chief executive of NBC, sits near a bobblehead from Kelley’s “Boston Legal” days and a black-and-white group shot of Matthew’s father, John Tinker, winning a writing Emmy for the drama “St. Elsewhere” in 1986.

When looking back at his own career, Matthew Tinker has done “pretty much every job under the sun,” which was only possible in a city that consistently had multiple productions running.

That concern for the future of industry employment was a major part of Hollywood and state legislators’ push to increase the annual funding for California’s film and TV tax credit program to $750 million and expand eligibility criteria to allow more projects to apply.

Those changes, which were approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, have now largely gone into effect and are starting to produce results.

In the first round of TV show tax credits since the program was revamped, the California Film Commission saw a nearly 400% increase in applications and awarded tax credits to a total of 22 shows.

“There was a lot of pent-up demand,” said Colleen Bell, executive director of the California Film Commission. “There’s a lot of momentum here, and these improvements to the program have helped to drive that momentum.”

The new activity is much needed. Production activity in L.A. so far this year is down 9% compared with last year, according to the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks shoot days in Greater L.A. 2024 was the second-worst year on record for production in the area after 2020, when the industry shut down due to the pandemic.

But there is hope on the horizon — of the 22 new TV projects that received a California tax credit this past round, 18 are slated to film largely in Greater L.A., including Kelley’s “Presumed Innocent.”

“The more that people have hope in the future of California as a production destination, I think you will continue to see entrepreneurs and others make their careers here,” said Philip Sokoloski, spokesman for FilmLA.

Because Los Angeles is more costly than other locations, filmmakers must make certain adjustments, such as shooting a TV series in 85 days instead of 100, or reducing daily filming hours.

But that’s very doable with experienced crews in L.A., said Caroline James, co-executive producer of “Presumed Innocent” and “Margo,” which employed about 500 people.

“There’s such an infrastructure in L.A.,” she said. “There’s no learning curve.”

Kelley’s production company, which has six employees including the veteran writer and producer, may not always be able to shoot everything in L.A., but executives intend to keep L.A. first and foremost in their decision-making and hopes that mentality will catch on around town.

“The goal is to always look at California first,” Tinker said.

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Residents dig out from the mud and debris that upended Forest Falls – Press Enterprise

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Tony Ramos

September 20, 2025

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The mud clung to decimated houses like a memory, thick and unyielding, refusing to let the Forrest Falls resident Olin Richey and several of his neighbors forget the afternoon that the sky opened and their world changed.

In the desolation that followed a torrential rain on Thursday, Sept. 18, causing massive flooding in several southern California communities including Oak Glen, Potato Canyon and Forest Falls, the scattered chapters of lives paused, plans were undone, and the slow, communal work of recovery commenced.

The storm had brought the worst heartache in Barstow on Friday: A 2-year-old boy was found dead some 20 hours after the toddler became separated from his father in a wash after their car was swept into a channel.

On Saturday, emergency crews continued to assess the damage from the mouth of Forest Falls at Highway 38 into the canyon.

For the 20 years he has lived in Forest Falls, Richey said, he has never seen such heavy runoff from the mountain. Nor had he ever seen residents prepare for a storm with such grim purpose.

Richey, the lead pastor at Calimesa Worship Center, and his wife Jessica began their Saturday morning by sorting through the mud, rocks and downed logs.

From left Olin Richey Jr. ,22, Victoria Richey, 15, and mother, Jessica Richey, 50, salvage what they can from their garage after mud and debris flooded their home on Canyon Drive in the San Bernardino Mountains community of Forest Falls on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

An avalanche of mud created a seven-foot bog, obliterating the back facade of Richey’s dwelling. Dense muck now rested deep in the home office and garage. Above, the home resembled a deadly game of “Jenga,” with pieces of the entire home missing.

The room of their 15-year-old daughter, Victoria, now lacked a proper structural foundation and could collapse at any moment. Instead of an idyllic driveway, a swamp, with cereal boxes, crafts, an array of colorful puzzle pieces and a photo of the actor Pedro Pascal – a current obsession of the teenager – was tangled in the mire.

The home is now “red-tagged” by San Bernardino County, with a bright red notice near the front door, informing the family that the house is unsafe. The pastor estimates that rebuilding efforts will take three months. Maybe longer. He said that he has no choice but to take time off from his pastoral duties to focus on reconstruction endeavors.

Oak Glenn Steak House restaurant workers remove four to five feet of mud and debris from the parking lot after Thursday's flash flooding in Oak Glen, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) — Oak Glenn Steak House restaurant workers remove four to five feet of mud and debris from the parking lot after Thursday’s flash flooding in Oak Glen, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Olin Richey, 51, said San Bernardino County took preventive measures by installing K-rails and M-rails along both sides of the property near the entrance of Valley of the Falls Drive and Canyon Drive, next to Prospect Creek.

The mayhem arrived anyway.

“You can’t contain it, and you really can’t prepare for it,” Richey said. He recalled his daughter pleading with her family to evacuate. Similar destruction befell the family in 2022 — a mountain community risk, he knows. The mental toll on Victoria weighs heavy.

“She just sat at the bottom of the driveway, and she’s like, ‘Mom, this is the only place I know. I don’t know how to leave it, but I don’t know if I can go back,’ ” Jessica Richey said.

Two miles up the road, deeper into the mountain community, a chaotic mix of rocks, trees, and mud encroached upon the road’s median. There sits the Elkhorn General Store. Veronica Hampton, 51, is a clerk who minds the shop on the weekends. She calls it Forrest Falls’ “downtown center.” More importantly, she thinks, is that Elkhorn serves as a sort of communal lifeline.

“We try to stay open if it’s safe, so we can give people supplies if they’re stuck up here,” Hampton said. Despite the fires, snowstorms and floods, Hampton says the community sticks together.

“I think that’s the biggest thing. When we come here, we say, ‘What do you need? What’s going on? How are your pets?’” said Hampton, as a young boy entered the general mart.

Jessica Richey, 50, looks back at her home through the missing wall of the garage after flash floods damaged the family home on Canyon Drive in the San Bernardino Mountains community of Forest Falls on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Less than a mile from Elkhorn, nestled on the side of the road, is the Forest Falls Seventh-day Adventist Church. The congregation is small. On a good day, 50 people attend the Saturday service. Church leader Carl Imthurn, 68, says Forest Falls makes the news on a regular basis for all the wrong reasons.

He admitted, “We’re living in the wilderness. That’s just the bottom line; there are fires. It’s a geologically active area. We have earthquakes. We’re in a valley. We get every so often, torrential rains, which cause mudslides.”

That fact still doesn’t change the reality that the aftermath of these events is ruinous to residents, Imthurn added.

“You don’t want life to go on as if nothing happened, because it doesn’t. It can’t. We want to acknowledge it, both within our our church body, and to the community at large,” he said.

The church leader took a beat, with tears welling in his eyes, and a quiet understanding dawned on him.

“It brings people closer together.”

Members of Olin Richey’s congregation arrived to help assess the havoc. Olin, his son and daughter, and a church member detached a broken garage door. It has been replaced three times due to events like this. A fourth is planned.

To the Richeys, there is no other home. Together, they built the home while Jessica was pregnant with their second child. As Olin Richey continued to work through debris, he paused to reflect on a message on his dirty forearms. On his right, part of Exodus 14:14 reads: “The Lord will fight for you.” On his left: “You need only be still.”

In life junctures that bring wreckage, he clings to these words.

“It’s our faith, man. You want to know the bottom line: Why would you come back? Because we believe that God will protect us. We did it last time. We’ll do it again,” Olin Richey said.

2-year-old boy found dead after family car swept into Barstow channel

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Elsinore football delivers balanced victory over Norte Vista – Press Enterprise

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Tony Ramos

September 20, 2025

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RIVERSIDE – Elsinore put a little ‘Stank’ on it.

An early score on special teams, a dominant rushing performance and a late touchdown pass from Brayden Stankus was more than enough as Elsinore earned a 35-14 nonleague victory over Norte Vista on Friday night.

“We always talk about making game-changing plays on special teams, and we were able make one, and I think it helped the kids relax and play more freely,” Elsinore coach Randy Kirschman said.

Luke Woodroof, Brady O’Connell and Camden Webb all ran for touchdowns, and Kai Tamagpong tallied his fifth consecutive 100-yard rushing performance as Elsinore (4-1 overall) gained 240 yards on the ground.

“This is a huge thing for us,” Kirschman said. “For us to come out on top like this is a big accomplishment.”

King Butler scored a late touchdown, but Norte Vista (3-2) struggled with the center-quarterback exchange throughout the game and finished with seven plays that netted negative yardage.

“We were out of sync on offense and we did a lot of things badly,” Norte Vista coach Ken Batdorf said.

Quarterback Jyden Henderson returned to the lineup after missing last week and completed 10 of 21 pass attempts for 110 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He also had 10 carries for a team-high 80 yards.

Dreadie Allain, who ran for 216 yards and three touchdowns in Norte Vista’s over Santa Monica in Week 3, was held to just 51 yards on nine carries.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Elsinore,” Batdorf said. “They kicked our butt.”

After a holding call negated an Allain touchdown run, Webb broke through Norte Vista’s line and blocked a field-goal attempt early in the first quarter.

“We got flustered, they get a blocked field goal and all of a sudden our kids are freaking out,” Batdorf said.

Ledgend Johnson picked it up and sprinted up the left sideline 80 yards for the game’s first score.

Proving it can pound the ball on offense, Elsinore totaled 146 yards on the ground in the first half with Woodroof (5 yards) and O’Connell (29 yards) adding rushing scores to make it 21-0 at halftime.

Elsinore’s defense got another stop to start the third quarter, and Stankus led a quick, three-play drive capped by a 35-yard touchdown pass to Bryce Petitt, who was wide open down the right sideline.

Ryan Henderson scored on a triple-option play late in the third quarter to get Norte Vista on the scoreboard, but the Braves were held to a season-low 130 rushing yards.

Butler finished with five receptions for 82 yards.

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A primer on what the high seas treaty is and how it will work

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Tony Ramos

September 20, 2025

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The approval of a high seas treaty means new protections will be possible in international waters for the first time.

Here’s a rundown of what the treaty is, why it matters and what is still to come.

Formally known as the Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, the treaty is the first legally binding agreement aimed at protecting marine biodiversity in international waters. These areas, which lie beyond the jurisdiction of any single country, account for nearly two-thirds of the ocean and nearly half of Earth’s surface.

Until now, no comprehensive legal framework existed to create marine protected areas or enforce conservation on the high seas.

Despite their remoteness, the high seas are under growing pressure from overfishing, climate change and the threat of deep-sea mining. Environmental advocates warn that without proper protections, marine ecosystems in international waters face irreversible harm.

“Until now, it has been the wild west on the high seas,” said Megan Randles, global political lead for oceans at Greenpeace. “Now we have a chance to properly put protections in place.”

The treaty is also essential to achieving what’s known as the global “30×30” target — an international pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030.

The treaty creates a legal process for countries to establish marine protected areas in the high seas, including rules for potentially destructive activities like deep-sea mining and geoengineering. It also establishes a framework for technology-sharing, funding mechanisms and scientific collaboration among countries.

Crucially, decisions under the treaty will be made multilaterally through what’s called a conference of the parties rather than by individual countries acting alone.

Ratification Friday by a 60th nation triggered a 120-day countdown before the treaty enters into force. Countries can already begin planning high seas protected areas, but formal proposals will only move forward once oversight mechanisms and decision-making rules are established.

The first conference of the parties must be held within a year of the treaty taking effect. It will lay the groundwork for implementation, including decisions on governance, financing and the creation of key bodies to evaluate marine protection proposals.

Environmental groups are pushing for even more countries to ratify the treaty and to do so quickly — the more countries that ratify, the stronger and more representative the treaty’s implementation will be. There’s a carrot for countries to do so. Only those that ratify by that first conference will be eligible to vote on critical decisions that determine how the treaty will operate.

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Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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India expresses concern about Trump plan to hike fees on H-1B visas

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Tony Ramos

September 20, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Indian government expressed concern Saturday about President Donald Trump’s latest push to upend American immigration policy, dramatically raising the fee for visas that bring tech workers from India and other countries to the United States.

The president on Friday signed a proclamation that will require a $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visas — meant for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find hard to fill. He also rolled out a $1 million “gold card” visa for wealthy individuals, moves that face near-certain legal challenges amid widespread criticism he is sidestepping Congress.

If the moves survive legal muster, they will deliver staggering price increases. The visa fee for skilled workers would jump from $215.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Saturday that Trump’s plan “was being studied by all concerned, including by Indian industry.″ The ministry warned that ”this measure is likely to have humanitarian consequences by way of the disruption caused for families. Government hopes that these disruptions can be addressed suitably by the U.S. authorities.″

H-1B visas, which require at least a bachelor’s degree, are meant for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill. Critics say the program undercuts American workers, luring people from overseas who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually. That is well below the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.

Trump on Friday insisted that the tech industry would not oppose the move. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said “all big companies” are on board.

Representatives for the biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, did not immediately respond to messages for comment. Microsoft declined to comment.

Lutnick said the change will likely result in far fewer H-1B visas than the 85,000 annual cap allows because “it’s just not economic anymore.”

“If you’re going to train people, you’re going to train Americans,” Lutnick said on a conference call with reporters. “If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in … then you can pay $100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”

Trump also announced he will start selling a “gold card” visa with a path to U.S. citizenship for $1 million after vetting. For companies, it will cost $2 million to sponsor an employee.

The “Trump Platinum Card” will be available for $5 million and allow foreigners to spend up to 270 days in the U.S. without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income. Trump announced a $5 million gold card in February to replace an existing investor visa — this is now the platinum card.

Lutnick said the gold and platinum cards would replace employment-based visas that offer paths to citizenship, including for professors, scientists, artists and athletes.

Critics of H-1Bs visas who say they are used to replace American workers applauded the move. U.S. Tech Workers, an advocacy group, called it “the next best thing” to abolishing the visas altogether.

Doug Rand, a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration, said the proposed fee increase was “ludicrously lawless.”

“This isn’t real policy — it’s fan service for immigration restrictionists,” Rand said. “Trump gets his headlines, and inflicts a jolt of panic, and doesn’t care whether this survives first contact with the courts.”

Lutnick said the H-1B fees and gold card could be introduced by the president but the platinum card needs congressional approval.

Historically, H-1B visas have been doled out through lottery. This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers.

Critics say H-1B spots often go to entry-level jobs, rather than senior positions with unique skill requirements. And while the program isn’t supposed to undercut U.S. wages or displace U.S. workers, critics say companies can pay less by classifying jobs at the lowest skill levels, even if the specific workers hired have more experience.

As a result, many U.S. companies find it cheaper to contract out help desks, programming and other basic tasks to consulting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Tata in India and IBM and Cognizant in the U.S. These consulting companies hire foreign workers, often from India, and contract them out to U.S. employers looking to save money.

Ron Hira, a professor in the political science department at Howard University and a longtime critic of H-1B visas, said the plan was a move in the right direction.

“It’s a recognition that the program is abused,’’ he said.

Raising the visa fee, he said, was an unusual way to address the H-1B program’s shortcomings. Normally, he said, reformers seek ways to raise the pay of the foreign workers, eliminating the incentive to use them to replace higher-paid Americans. He noted approvingly that Trump’s proclamation calls for the U.S. Labor Department to “initiate a rulemaking to revise the prevailing wage levels’’ under the visa program.

Critics of H-1B visas have also called on the lottery to be replaced by an auction in which companies vie for the right to bring in foreign workers.

First lady Melania Trump, the former Melania Knauss, was granted an H-1B work visa in October 1996 to work as a model. She was born in Slovenia.

In 2024, lottery bids for the visas plunged nearly 40%, which authorities said was due to success against people who were “gaming the system” by submitting multiple, sometimes dubious, applications to unfairly increase chances of being selected.

Major technology companies that use H-1B visas sought changes after massive increases in bids left their employees and prospective hires with slimmer chances of winning the random lottery. Facing what it acknowledged was likely fraud and abuse, USCIS this year said each employee had only one shot at the lottery, whether the person had one job offer or 50.

Critics welcomed the change but said more needs to be done. The AFL-CIO wrote last year that while changes to the lottery “included some steps in the right direction,” it fell short of needed reforms. The labor group wants visas awarded to companies that pay the highest wages instead of by random lottery, a change that Trump sought during his first term in the White House.

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Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.

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Chicago crime victims’ families say violence a problem, troops not the answer

Daily News

Tony Ramos

September 20, 2025

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Delphine Cherry knows as well as anyone how intractable violent crime is in Chicago. In 1992, her teenage daughter was gunned down in one of the city’s toniest neighborhoods — a bystander caught up in a gang shootout. Twenty years later in a suburb just south of the city, it claimed her son.

“You don’t think it’s going to happen twice in your life,” she said.

Chicago has been bracing for weeks for President Donald Trump’s promised deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s third-largest city. Although Trump said the troops would help fight crime in a city he described as a “hellhole,” his administration has been tightlipped about the operation’s details, including when it would start, how long it would last, how many troops would be used and what role they would play in civilian law enforcement.

Trump has also veered back and forth on sending troops to Chicago — at times insisting he would act unilaterally to deploy them and at other points suggesting he would rather send them to New Orleans or some other city in a state where their governor “wants us to come in.” Most recently, he said this week that Chicago is “probably next” after National Guard troops are sent to Memphis.

Although Chicago has had one of the highest rates of gun violence of any major American city for some time, city and state leaders overwhelmingly oppose the planned operation, calling it political theater. And even those most directly affected, including people who have lost loved ones to violent crime, wonder how sending in troops would have any lasting effect on the fight against it.

With plans for the Chicago deployment unknown, the ways National Guard troops have been used in Los Angeles and Washington this summer might offer clues.

In June, Trump deployed thousands of Guard troops to Los Angeles amid protests over his administration’s immigration crackdown there. Although the troops initially were assigned to guard federal property, they also provided protection for immigration agents during raids and took part in a show of force at a park in a heavily immigrant neighborhood of LA that local officials believe was meant to sow fear.

In August, Trump announced he was placing Washington’s police force under his control and mobilizing federal forces to reduce crime and homelessness there. The troops who were deployed have patrolled around Metro stations and in the most tourist-heavy parts of the nation’s capital. But they have also been spotted picking up trash and raking leaves in city parks.

The White House reported that more than 2,100 arrests had been made in Washington in the first few weeks after Trump announced he was mobilizing federal forces. And Mayor Muriel Bowser credited the federal deployment with a drop in crime, including an 87% decline in carjackings, but also criticized the frequent immigration arrests by masked ICE agents. However, an unusually high rate of cases being dropped has some, including at least one judge, wondering whether prosecutors are making charging decisions before cases are properly investigated and vetted.

Washington is unique in that it is a federal district subject to laws giving Trump power to take over the local police force for up to 30 days. The decision to use troops to try to fight crime in other Democratic-controlled cities would represent an important escalation.

Although the Trump administration hasn’t said what the troops would be doing and what parts of Chicago they would operate in, they have explicitly promised a surge of federal agents targeting immigration enforcement. The city’s so-called sanctuary policies are among the country’s strongest and bar local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

Chicago isn’t the only Democratic-led city in Trump’s sights — he’s also mentioned Baltimore as a likely target. But Trump seems to harbor particular scorn for the Windy City, warning in an “Apocalypse Now”-themed social media post earlier this month: “’I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

The president’s criticism, though, is more often focused on how the city’s and state’s Democratic leaders deal with crime.

Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have repeatedly pointed to a drop in crime in Chicago and have asked for more federal funding for prevention programs instead of sending in the National Guard.

Last year, the city had 573 homicides, or 21 per every 100,000 residents, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology. That’s 25% fewer than in 2020 and was a lower rate than several other major U.S. cities. Like most big cities, violent crime isn’t evenly spread out in Chicago, with most shootings happening on the South and West sides.

“If it was about safety, then the Trump administration would not have slashed $158 million in federal funding for violence prevention programs this year,” said Yolanda Androzzo, executive director of gun violence prevention nonprofit One Aim Illinois.

After Cherry’s 16-year-old daughter, Tyesa, was killed in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood by a stray bullet that a 14-year-old fired at rival gang members, the devastated mother moved her family to Hazel Crest, a suburb just south of the city.

“We were planning for prom. She was going on to college to be a nurse,” Cherry said.

Her son, Tyler, was fatally shot in the driveway of the family’s suburban home in 2012, 20 years after Tyesa was killed.

Although her children’s deaths have made Cherry an antiviolence advocate — she sits on One Aim Illinois’ board — she doesn’t believe bringing in troops will do anything to fight crime in Chicago, and that it could making the streets more dangerous.

“They’re not going to ask questions,” Cherry said of the National Guard. “They are trained to kill on sight.”

Trevon Bosley, who was 7 years old when his 18-year-old brother, Terrell, was shot and killed in 2006 while unloading drums outside of a Church before band rehearsal, also thinks sending in troops isn’t the answer.

“There is so much love and so much community in Chicago,” said Bosley, whose brother’s killing remains unsolved. “There are communities that need help. When those resources are provided, they become just as beautiful as downtown, just as beautiful as the North Side.”

Like Johnson, Pritzker and other critics of the promised troop deployment, Bosley thinks better funding would make a real positive difference in parts of the city with the highest crime and poverty rates.

“It’s not like we have a police shortage,” Bosley said. “The National Guard and police show up after a shooting has occurred. They don’t show up before. That’s not stopping or saving anyone.”

Associated Press reporter Christine Fernando contributed to this report.

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