Indiana Stories
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Around the Corn (Quick Headlines)
Indiana Sen. Mike Bohacek pleads guilty to a misdemeanor drunken driving charge
Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, admitted to operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalent of .15 or more, a Class A misdemeanor, according to the agreement obtained by the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
The state senator was initially charged with three counts: operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalent of .15 or more, a Class A misdemeanor; operating a vehicle while intoxicated in a manner that endangered a person, also a Class A misdemeanor; and operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a Class C misdemeanor.
The deal calls for Bohacek to pay $110.50 in fines, $189.50 in court costs, and $200 for countermeasure fees. He was also ordered to complete a substance abuse evaluation and participate in therapy.
Indiana Supreme Court finalizes Oct. 10 execution date for Roy Lee Ward
The Indiana Supreme Court denied death row inmate Roy Lee Ward’s latest appeal on Wednesday and officially set his execution for Oct. 10.
In its ruling, the court rejected arguments that the state’s lethal injection process poses a constitutional risk and said Ward had not met the legal burden to reopen his case.
Indiana DOC shifts course, plans to keep Michigan City prison open beyond 2027
José Evans, a former Republican Indianapolis city-county councilor who took the helm in March, resigned Aug. 22 after five months on the job. The same day, Gov. Mike Braun appointed J. Philip Clay, a Republican real estate investor who ran unsuccessfully for a Statehouse seat last year, to replace Evans.
The circumstances surrounding the switch up are unclear. Two former employees and contractors of the agency spoke during a public commission meeting in May about a work environment under Evans characterized by "aggressive behavior" and a "climate of intimidation." Both told the commission board that the state's human resources department was aware of multiple complaints. A third person painted a similar picture to IndyStar.
Indy leaders vote down youth curfew fines for parents, as some push for more accountability
Earlier this month, the City-County Council approved a new 120-day curfew for youth in Indianapolis.
The curfew makes guidelines more strict for when teens under the age of 17 can be outside unsupervised.
Under Proposal 245, parents of curfew violators would receive tiered consequences:
a. Receive a written notice for a child’s first offense.
b. Be subject to a fine of $500 for a second offense.
c. Be subject to a fine of $1500 for a third or subsequent offense.
The Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee voted down the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday.
Fraternal Order of Police President Rick Snyder says council members sent the wrong message with their decision.
Snyder says harsher punishments are needed to prevent further death and violence.
A United States District Court has ruled that the City of Loogootee’s decision to block a pride festival at the town’s Public Square was unconstitutional, according to court documents.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of PrideFest sponsors against the City of Loogootee in the Summer of 2024.
The court also ordered that the City of Loogootee shall allow the PrideFest to take place this September in 2025.
Slate Auto opening Warsaw factory
Slate Auto held an open house at the Warsaw factory earlier this week, where demolition work was still very much in evidence. Despite the somewhat bare-bones background, the mood among local officials was celebratory. When the printing plant closed in 2023, it wiped out 525 jobs. Once the new factory is up to full speed, more than 2,000 jobs will pour in, along with a $400 million investment on the part of Slate.
Still, Slate Auto is forging ahead. As befits its new EV-on-a-budget business model, the company has been refurbishing a former printing plant in Warsaw, Indiana, to produce the Blank Slate pickup along with other variants on the same platform. As for how one might expect to squeeze an entire auto assembly line into a former printing plant, that’s the Slate penny-pinching model in action.
Stripped down to the bare essentials, the new EV only requires about 600 parts, compared to thousands of parts for a typical truck. Slate expects customers to take their new EV as-is, saving space on paint shops and trim stations.
Report: Ex-Colts owner Irsay suffered drug relapses before death
Late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay continued to suffer setbacks from a longtime addiction to painkillers before his death in May, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The Post cites five people who had direct knowledge of Irsay's relapses but who requested anonymity because they said they feared retaliation from the team.
Irsay died May 21. The team said he died "peacefully in his sleep."
The Post story says Irsay overdosed at least three times since February 2020, including twice during a 12-day span, the first in December 2023 at his home in suburban Indianapolis and the second in January 2024 in Miami.
State Funding Cuts
Braun says administration saved $38M in 6 months, cut $72M in future spending
“We’re finding a lot of things in many of the nooks and crannies of our own state government,” he told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.
Contract renegotiations, for example, saved $1.4 million and prevented $37 million in projected spending, Braun continued.
Reforming the state’s approach to procurement — using national price benchmarks and “smarter processes” — saved $2.3 million and cut $31.8 million from future expenditures, according to a news release issued last week.
Indiana property tax cuts could lead to reduced funding for Indianapolis crime prevention program
A crime prevention program that advocates say is helping Indianapolis curb violence could lose a large chunk of its city funding next year as Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration grapples with the impact of property tax cuts passed by the Republican state legislature.
The cuts will cost Indianapolis an estimated $10.5 million in revenue, leading Hogsett to ask most city and county agencies to cut their 2026 budgets by 4%. But a spokesperson for the mayor said departments were given discretion to choose where those trims occur.
The Office of Public Health and Safety, for example, has proposed pulling $1 million from The Elevation Grant Program, a local initiative addressing the root causes of crime. It supports community organizations working to improve neighborhoods, crisis prevention and people at risk for gun violence.
Indiana Republicans Deliberate Redistricting
One staunch opponent, Rep. Jim Lucas, said his stance softened after hearing from Vice President JD Vance. Previously a “hard no,” Lucas said he isn’t yet a “yes” but he is worried about the paralyzing effect a Democratic House majority would have on President Donald Trump’s agenda.
House Speaker Todd Huston and Sen. Pro Tem Rodric Bray reportedly had a private meeting with Trump, according to Politico reporters, who said “more than” 55 lawmakers attended. Huston’s daughter, Liz, is an assistant to Trump’s press secretary.
Earlier Tuesday morning, as Republicans potentially caught flights to the nation’s capital, Democrats urged their counterparts to resist Trump’s redistricting push at a “Sayonara, Sellouts” press conference held at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Braun keeps wait-and-see stance on redistricting as GOP lawmakers deliberate
Braun emphasized that he is deferring to House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray. Neither of the Republican legislative leaders have made their positions clear either, though some of their caucus members have.
One longtime Senate Republican came out Friday against redistricting as the likelihood for a special session seems to be gaining momentum.
“Our maps are only four years old. They have undergone considerable public scrutiny and review,” said Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus. “There is no justification for holding a special session to change our districts in mid-census. If Texas and California want to take the cynical step of redistricting their seats, so be it. But Hoosier lawmakers should be leaders in resisting this hypocrisy, not followers of this effort promoted by outsiders, not Hoosiers.”
Rep. Andrew Ireland says GOP has a 'constitutional right' to redistrict
Ireland: I think that there's a strategic disadvantage at the national level for Republicans in Congress because of partisan gerrymandering in other states like our neighbor, Illinois. Right now, the leader of our party, I think, recognized that issue. And we can sit on our laurels and say that we have this map that, the Princeton election lab, for example, rates as one of the least gerrymandered in the country.
Inskeep: You're making an argument, as Democrats are, that the other guys are doing it more. But I want to focus just for a moment on the state of Indiana. You were quoted as saying Democrats "have no business representing us in Washington." Is that a thing you said?
Ireland: That's right. I say that because you look at Indiana and the political makeup–Yes, we're 60/40. But also Democrats have not won over the average Hoosier in a statewide vote for more than a decade in a single office. I think that says a lot about where the party is that it no longer connects with the average Hoosier voter.
More Scandal in Indiana Law Enforcement
Indiana law enforcement training board to weigh request to decertify Dubois County sheriff
The Indiana state body that oversees police certification is now considering whether Dubois County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter should be stripped of his law enforcement credentials.
The Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board’s decertification subcommittee was asked last week to review the case, following a request from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and its executive director, Tim Horty.
The request follows a monthslong Indiana State Police investigation into allegations of misconduct by Kleinhelter. Although a special prosecutor ultimately decided not to charge Kleinhelter, the training board voted Aug. 18 to move forward with charges of fraud, perjury, false informing and criminal misconduct.
Even if he is decertified, however, he could still serve as sheriff. In Indiana, sheriffs’ offices are constitutionally created, and holding the office does not require police certification.
The probe has since drawn wider attention after former Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter publicly criticized the agency’s handling of the case. Carter pointed to the discipline of Lt. Jeff Hearon, the lead investigator, who was suspended after pressing a reluctant prosecutor to charge Kleinhelter.
Using findings from a long-term Indiana State Police investigation, state prosecutors alleged Noel used millions of taxpayer dollars from the Utica Volunteer Firefighters Association and New Chapel EMS to buy cars, planes, vacations, clothing and other personal luxury purchases. Investigators said public funds were also used to pay for college tuition and child support.
The disgraced former sheriff additionally admitted to tasking county employees with jobs related to his personal collection of classic cars.
IndyStar investigation by reporter Kristine Phillips and visual journalist Mykal McEldowney, pulled back the curtain on decades-old police misconduct in Elkhart and the lingering impact on the department and the city's Black community.
…and Kokomo cop charged with sexually assaulting 14-year old
At a closed-door meeting in April, Micah Beckwith and members of what the Indiana lieutenant governor called his Anti-Woke Advisory Committee laid out an aggressive strategy to expand conservative influence in public schools and push back against what the group identified as “woke policy creep.”
The committee detailed plans to launch conservative student clubs, reshape teacher training programs and identify school districts where diversity and pro-LGBTQ+ policies are in place, according to meeting notes obtained by The Indiana Citizen and verified as authentic by a person familiar with the committee. Many of the discussion topics were aimed at ramping up political pressure on school boards.
Those at the table represented a cross-section of Indiana’s conservative movement. Attendees included Indiana Family Institute executive director Ryan McCann and education director Martin Strother. Former Attorney General Curtis Hill — who lost his 2020 renomination bid after his law license was suspended over groping allegations — joined by video, a reminder of his ongoing presence in some GOP circles. Also present was Jay Hart, a Morgan County conservative who unsuccessfully challenged state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in a 2024 Republican primary.
The only sitting lawmaker in the room was state Sen. Craig Haggard, R-Mooresville. Haggard has since criticized Beckwith’s handling of allegations that around the same time the April meeting took place, staffers in the lieutenant governor’s office viewed a deepfake pornographic video of Haggard’s wife.
Rounding out the group were Fishers photographer Shayre Rivotto, Allie Madden, a Marion County state GOP convention delegate, and Valerie Swank, as well as conservative activist and social media figure Ken Colbert of Evansville, who attended via video.
According to the meeting notes, the committee formed by Beckwith, a self-identified Christian nationalist, focused on specific steps to launch conservative clubs in schools and target teachers, education colleges and programs they see as promoting pro-LGBTQ+ content or “leftist ideology.”
Members discussed creating “Conservative Club Kits” with shirts, hats and stickers and developing a youth branding campaign built around the slogan, “It’s Cool to Be Conservative.” The effort would be coordinated with Turning Point USA, a national conservative youth organization founded by right-wing media personality Charlie Kirk.
According to the meeting notes, committee members also raised concerns about teacher preparation programs at Indiana universities, which they accused of embedding DEI and progressive ideology. Recommendations included a statewide audit, requirements for curriculum transparency, and mandates that training emphasize the U.S. Constitution, free-market economics and character education.
The group also discussed ways to enforce “patriotic and conservative laws,” the notes show. Among the topics of discussion was an existing state law requiring the display of the American flag at schools and other tax-supported institutions, with the notes claiming that compliance was lacking. Members noted that the law has no teeth and is widely unenforced.
To give conservative-majority school boards confidence in rolling back DEI or pro-LGBTQ+ measures, the committee discussed establishing an Indiana Anti-Woke Legal Defense Fund. Members argued that fear of litigation had prevented boards from acting, citing concerns over the high cost of lawsuits if they attempted to eliminate DEI offices or remove LGBTQ+-inclusive materials. They proposed tapping legal assistance from national advocacy groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom and drawing on the Indiana Family Institute for additional policy support.
US/World News
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Briefs
In a five-photo joint post on Instagram, the superstar singer and football player revealed their engagement, the fairytale culmination of a courtship that for two years has thrilled and fascinated millions around the world, but especially Swifties, the pop star’s enormous and ardent fan base.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the caption read, accompanied by an emoji of a dynamite stick.
Trump revokes Secret Service protection for former Vice President Kamala Harris
Vice presidents typically get six months of protection after leaving office, but President Joe Biden signed a memorandum in January extending Harris' protection to 18 months.
[A White House] official added that Mike Pence, then-Vice President Biden and Dick Cheney all received the customary six months. Further extensions require presidential or congressional action.
Cheney, an architect of the Bush administration’s national security policies, requested an extension amid concerns about his personal safety, which was granted by then-President Barack Obama, the New York Daily News reported at the time.
Other former vice presidents have also received extensions, with Al Gore and Dan Quayle receiving protection for 180 days, former Secret Service director Mark Sullivan told the Washington Post in 2008.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst won't seek reelection next year, source says
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidantes she plans to reveal next week that she won't seek reelection in 2026, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Ernst's announcement is scheduled for Thursday, the sources said. Ernst, 55, has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015.
White House officials had hoped Ernst would run again, instead of joining other Republicans who are leaving the Senate, including North Carolina's Thom Tillis, Alabama's Tommy Tuberville and Kentucky's Mitch McConnell.
Denmark summons U.S. envoy over claims of interference in Greenland
Denmark’s foreign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.
One of those people allegedly compiled a list of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders, collected names of people opposed to Trump and got locals to point out cases that could be used to cast Denmark in a bad light in American media. Two others have tried to nurture contacts with politicians, businesspeople and locals, according to the report.
Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island.
War
Israel-Palestine
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the largest urban centre in the territory a “combat zone”.
Israeli forces have killed at least 77 Palestinians across Gaza, including 47 people in northern Gaza City, as the military intensifies its campaign to seize the city and displace about one million people living there.
The killings on Saturday included 11 Palestinians who were shot dead while queueing for food aid, and came as the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that 10 more people had died of malnutrition in the last 24-hour period.
Organizers estimate hundreds of thousands attended Tel Aviv rally
Organizers in Israel estimated that hundreds of thousands attended their rally in Tel Aviv as a nationwide “day of struggle” for a hostage deal and ceasefire ended on Tuesday.
“More than 350,000 at the rally concluding a day of solidarity sent a clear message—the government must sign the deal that’s currently on the table,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “The entire nation demands an end to the war and the return of all hostages.
Air strike kills Houthi prime minister
The Houthis confirmed Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in a strike on the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Thursday, which also left others seriously wounded.
The Houthis have been targeting Red Sea shipping in solidarity with Palestinians following the October 7 attacks, and have fired a number of missiles at Israel, most of which have been intercepted.
Since the start of the war in Gaza nearly two years ago, Israel has used its robust intelligence advantage to eliminate the leaders of Iran’s closest proxies in the Middle East.
Last year, Israel assassinated Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Two months later, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut.
Palestinian president's visa to the U.S. revoked ahead of key meetings at United Nations
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the U.S. government on Saturday to reverse its decision to revoke his visa, weeks before he is meant to appear at the United Nations' annual meeting and an international conference about creating a Palestinian state.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio rescinded the visas of Abbas and 80 other officials ahead of next month's high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, the State Department disclosed on Friday. Palestinian representatives assigned to the U.N. mission were granted exceptions.
Large-scale Russian air assaults: Russia launched two major air attacks on Ukrainian cities over the past week.
August 28th: A missile and drone barrage killed at least 25 people in Kyiv, hitting a shopping mall and diplomatic offices.
August 30th: A second "massive strike" hit 14 regions of Ukraine with nearly 600 drones and missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. At least one person was killed and dozens wounded in Zaporizhzhia.
In a speech to his deputies, [Russian chief of staff Valery] Gerasimov also said that Russian forces now control 99.7 percent of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, 79 percent of the Donetsk region, 74 percent of the Zaporizhia region and 76 percent of the Kherson region. He went on to claim that Russian troops have almost completely blockaded the city of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, and control about half of its area.
Russia advances in Dnipropetrovsk: Ukrainian officials confirmed this week that Russian forces have entered the central Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time. Russian troops captured two villages in the area, according to the New York Times and the Ukrainian blog DeepState.
The administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador because U.S. officials said he was an MS-13 gang member. It’s an allegation that Abrego Garcia denies and for which he wasn’t charged.
His removal to El Salvador violated a U.S. immigration judge’s ruling from 2019 that barred his deportation there. The judge found that Abrego Garcia faced credible threats from a local gang that had extorted and terrorized his family.
Following a U.S. Supreme Court order, the administration returned him to the United States in June. But it was only to face human smuggling charges, which his lawyers have called preposterous and vindictive.
The administration has said it now intends to deport Abrego Garcia to the African country of Uganda. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, told reporters Friday that Garcia has “said he doesn’t want to go back to El Salvador.”
Miller said the administration is “honoring that request by providing him with an alternate place to live.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported in March before being brought back to the U.S. to face new criminal charges, was taken into immigration custody upon checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement at its office in Baltimore on Monday morning and is currently being held at a detention center in Virginia, where he is again facing deportation.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who has been overseeing his deportation case, said at a habeas hearing Monday afternoon that the federal government is "absolutely forbidden" from deporting him for the time being.
"Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States," Judge Xinis told government attorneys.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has come to encapsulate much of President Donald Trump ’s hard-line immigration agenda, wants to seek asylum in the United States, his lawyers told a federal judge Wednesday.
If Abrego Garcia’s new asylum request is approved, it could provide a green card and a path to citizenship. But his petition must go through the U.S. immigration court system, which is not part of the judiciary but an arm of the Department of Justice and under the Trump administration’s authority.
Tariffs
De minimis tariff exemption ends
A growing list of at least 25 countries has announced they will no longer ship certain small packages to the U.S. as the “de minimis” tariff exemption is set to end Friday.
President Trump signed an executive order to end the de minimis rule late last month. Under the policy, shipments under $800 were exempt from duties or tariffs.
Trump already ended the exception for China, sending discount retailers like Shein and Temu scrambling to change their distribution models and raise prices for shoppers.
Most Trump tariffs ruled illegal by appeals court, dealing major blow to trade policy
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, striking a massive blow to the core of his aggressive trade policy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a 7-4 ruling that the law Trump invoked when he granted his most expansive tariffs — including his “reciprocal” tariffs — does not actually grant him the power to impose those levies.
“The core Congressional power to impose taxes such as tariffs is vested exclusively in the legislative branch by the Constitution,” the court said. “Tariffs are a core Congressional power.”
The appellate court paused its ruling from taking effect until Oct. 14, in order to give the Trump administration time to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision.
The Purge
Trump says he’s firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, opening new front in fight for central bank control
President Donald Trump said Monday night that he’s firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an unprecedented move that would constitute a sharp escalation in his battle to exert greater control over what has long been considered an institution independent from day-to-day politics.
Trump said in a letter posted on his Truth Social platform that he is removing Cook effective immediately because of allegations that she committed mortgage fraud.
Cook said Monday night that she would not step down. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in an emailed statement. “I will not resign.”
If Trump succeeds in removing Cook from the board, it could erode the Fed’s political independence, which is considered critical to its ability to fight inflation because it enables it to take unpopular steps like raising interest rates. If bond investors start to lose faith that the Fed will be able to control inflation, they will demand higher rates to own bonds, pushing up borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and business loans.
CDC left leaderless after new Director Dr. Susan Monarez is ousted and other key officials follow
Dr. Susan Monarez, who was sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on July 31, has been removed from the position, the White House said Wednesday..
Monarez’s ouster, first reported by The Washington Post, burst into public view over several tumultuous hours Wednesday. Just weeks into her tenure as director, she had clashed with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy over vaccine policy and her refusal to fire several veteran CDC leaders, according to people familiar with the situation.
Monarez’s ouster followed days of internal pressure led by Kennedy’s deputy chief of staff and close confidante, Stefanie Spear, according to two people familiar with the situation. It also came soon after Kennedy summoned Monarez to Washington and demanded that she fire Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer and deputy director of programs and science; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Dan Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Shortly after Monarez’s departure was confirmed Wednesday, [these three] CDC officials also announced that they were leaving.
The CDC is readying to announce a new slate of appointees to its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in the coming weeks, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Kennedy dissolved the panel of independent vaccine advisers in June and days later named eight new members, many of whom have cast doubt on the safety of vaccines and public policy around vaccination.
Monarez also clashed with Kennedy and his team over vaccine policies, including an impending announcement that could draw links between immunizations and autism, according to a person familiar with the situation.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” [her attorneys] wrote. “This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science.”
Pentagon fires intelligence agency chief after Iran attack assessment
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's intelligence agency chief, just weeks after a White House rebuke of a review assessing the impact of American strikes on Iran.
Lt Gen Jeffery Kruse will no longer serve as head of US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon said in a statement. Two other senior military commanders have also been ousted by the Pentagon.
In June, President Donald Trump had pushed back strongly on a leaked DIA report that found that attacks on Iran had set back its nuclear programme by months only. The White House declared the agency's assessment "flat out wrong".
Trump’s Military Occupation
Governors, Mayors Respond
“You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is,” Trump said during the announcement. “We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland.”
In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement Friday said the city had received no formal communication from the White House concerning any deployments there. Johnson expressed “grave concerns” over an “unlawful deployment,” calling Trump’s approach “uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound.”
In Los Angeles, Trump defied Mayor Karen Bass by deploying National Guard troops and Marines to the city in June to protect federal buildings during protests against the administration’s immigration policies.
“We don’t need anyone to come in and take over our law enforcement apparatus. We have the finest police department on the globe,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters one day after Trump’s DC announcement. “We got this under control.”
Pritzker tells Trump to stay out of Chicago: ‘You are neither wanted here nor needed here’
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday railed against President Donald Trump for suggesting he would deploy federal forces to Chicago, accusing the administration of “searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections.”
“If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is, a dangerous power grab,” Pritzker said at a press conference in Chicago.
“If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?” Pritzker said.
Johnson signs order aimed at resisting planned immigration crackdown, possible Nat. Guard deployment
Johnson signed the "Protecting Chicago" executive order on Saturday as the Trump administration prepares to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation, which could start next week.
Sources say hundreds of immigration enforcement agents could be coming to Chicago. Those agents are expected to be stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes.
With a stroke of a pen, Johnson signed an executive order establishing the Protecting Chicago Initiative. It directs city agencies to regularly submit Freedom of Information Act requests regarding actions taken by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And it reaffirms that the Chicago Police Department will remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency.
The executive order also calls on federal law enforcement to follow municipal policies, including those prohibiting officers from wearing masks to conceal their identities, requiring body cameras to be worn and activated while interacting with a member of the public, and mandating that officers display the name of their federal agency, their last name, and their badge number.
Regular people respond
After failing to get felony indictment, feds charge DC sandwich thrower with a misdemeanor
Federal prosecutors have charged the man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol agent in Washington, D.C., earlier this month with a misdemeanor after a grand jury refused to indict him on a more serious felony assault charge on Wednesday, according to court records filed Thursday.
Sean Dunn has now been charged through a criminal information, which did not require sign-off by a D.C. grand jury.
Prosecutors similarly failed to convince a federal grand jury in D.C. to indict a woman, Sidney Reid, accused by the government of assaulting an FBI agent during an inmate swap with ICE, despite three separate attempts, according to court records.
It matters why the grand jury in D.C. declined to indict sandwich thrower Sean Dunn
Looking at this formally, the answer to why a grand jury would decline to return an indictment is simple: It means prosecutors failed to show probable cause that Dunn committed a felony when he threw food at a federal agent. Given the ease and frequency with which prosecutors usually secure indictments, that would make the failure both rare and embarrassing in a high-profile arrest that was touted by the administration. But it would also make it a straightforwardly technical one — that is, a legal failing to satisfy the elements of the crime under the applicable legal standard.
But something bigger may have been at play: jury nullification. That’s when jurors believe that prosecutors have proved the technical elements of the case but, nonetheless, the jury renders a moral objection by way of a not guilty verdict (or in the case of a grand jury, a “no true bill”).
One Big Thing - Minneapolis School Shooting
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The Minneapolis school shooter fired at children through church windows. Here's what we know.
A shooter opened fire at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis during a Mass attended by young students, killing two children and wounding more than a dozen other people. The shooter died by suicide at the church, which is attached to a school building.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said in a Thursday news conference that the department received calls of shots fired at 8:27 a.m. Wednesday. A police officer arrived at the scene at 8:31 a.m. and was directed to the shooter's location by a parishioner, O'Hara said.
O'Hara said the shooter fired a rifle through church windows and was also armed with a shotgun and a pistol. The shooting occurred at the beginning of the Mass, O'Hara said. Three shotgun shells and 116 rifle rounds have been recovered, as well as one live round from the shooter's handgun that malfunctioned and became stuck in the weapon's chamber, O'Hara said Thursday.
The two young victims were killed while they sat in the pews, police said. Their families have identified them as 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski.
Eighteen others, including 15 children between the ages of 6 and 15, were injured, O'Hara said. The number of injured rose from 17 to 18 on Thursday when officials said another injured child, who was transported to an area hospital by a private vehicle, had been identified. The three injured adults were all parishioners in their 80s, O'Hara said on Wednesday afternoon.
Three law enforcement sources told CBS News the shooter was Robin Westman, 23, from suburban Minneapolis. The shooter acted alone, O'Hara said. Westman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the back of the church.
Inevitable ‘thoughts and prayers’ fight follows Minneapolis shooting
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told a news conference after the shooting
Frey tapped into the principle of “Tikkun Olam,” in his Jewish faith, which speaks about repairing the world.
“The meaning there is, prayers are good, but they are not enough,” Frey said on CNN. “It’s only adequate if you can attach an action to the work. And in this case, we know what the solutions are. They’ve been the same solutions three years ago, five years ago, 15 years ago.”
“It is shocking to me that so many left wing politicians attack the idea of prayer in response to a tragedy,” Republican Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, posted on X. “Literally no one thinks prayer is a substitute for action. We pray because our hearts are broken and we believe that God is listening.”
Jen Psaki, who was spokesperson for former President Joe Biden, stated on X: “Prayer is not freaking enough. ... Prayer does not bring these kids back.”
Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for President Donald Trump, retorted in a news conference: “In a time of mourning like this, when beautiful young children were killed while praying in a church, it’s utterly disrespectful to deride the power of prayer in this country, and it’s disrespectful to the millions of Americans of faith.”
America has a gun deaths epidemic. If you add up all the U.S. soldiers who have died in every war in our nation’s history — from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to World War II and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that number is still lower than the number of civilians who have died in gun-related incidents in the United States in the past 50 years.
America’s gun murder rate is not a small outlier. Countries on this list include Japan and the United Kingdom, which each have their share of social problems, but are roughly as rich as the US and have reasonably large populations, too. But Japan has 0.04 gun murders per 100,000 people, compared to 3.96 in the US. To put it bluntly, the gun murder rate is about 99 times higher in the US than Japan.
GOP blaming mental illness for gun violence is counterproductive and cruel
“The primary misconception that exists among many members of the public is that gun violence, particularly mass shootings, results primarily from mental illness, and in fact that’s not true,” [Columbia University Psychiatry Professor Paul] Appelbaum said. This widespread belief has “diverted attention from ways of making it harder for people to get guns”, he said, and instead focused attention on mental health interventions unlikely to prevent much violence.
Jeff Swanson at Duke published a study that estimated somewhere around 4% of violence was attributable to mental illness, which meant if you could get rid of all the violence that was caused by or related to mental illness, we’d still be left with 96% of the violence in this country.
We know two things: the vast majority of mass shooting perpetrators are not suffering from a serious mental illness. We also know that people with serious mental illness are somewhat overrepresented among mass shooters. Another way of saying that is: there’s an increased risk of mass violence by people with serious mental disorders, but nonetheless the vast majority of such incidents are not linked to serious mental illness.
What’s important to say, before we narrow the focus to mental illness, is that none of those factors are as powerfully related to violence as some common characteristics that exist across people with mental illness and without mental illness.
Age: young people are much more likely to be violent than older people.
Men are much more likely to be violent than women.
People who use alcohol and other disinhibiting substances are much more likely to be violent than people who don’t.
Prior violence is strongly associated with future violence.
And if mental health is the problem, why don’t you fund it?
Conservatives Seize On Minneapolis Shooting To Push Anti-Trans Messages
Prominent conservatives, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have seized on Wednesday’s school shooting in Minneapolis and reports about the shooter’s identity to push anti-trans rhetoric and policies.
In a Wednesday post shared in response to a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School that left two children dead and 17 other children and adults wounded, Greene described “gender dysphoria” as a “mental illness” and urged Congress to pass legislation that would “make it a FELONY to perform sex change surgeries and all forms of medications on minors.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and conservative commentator Benny Johnson also shared posts alleging a “pattern” regarding instances of violence and trans or nonbinary gender identity. (These statements are patently false: As the Gun Violence Archive noted in 2024, about 0.11% of known suspects in mass shootings have been transgender in the last decade.)
And top Trump officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel, emphasized the shooter’s presumed gender identity in their updates about the shooting as well. Noem described the shooter as a “23 year-old man, claiming to be transgender” and Patel stated that the shooter was “a male” who was born under a different name.
The shooter’s message: “There is no message”
In his social media post, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency found in Westman's writings and other materials "anti-Catholic, anti-religious references," "hatred and violence toward Jewish people" and "an explicit call for violence against President Trump." But [extremism experts] note that these are just a sampling of the animus that Westman displayed against a wide range of targets. They say that to select just a few is to ignore the larger picture that emerges from the evidence they've viewed: that Westman was obsessed with mass killing, particularly of children, for any — and no — reason at all.
"We have found markers of both right-wing and left-wing political views here. There are a few mentions of overt racism, of overt antisemitism, but they're mixed in with a lot of references to many other things."
For example, the inner cover of one notebook features a sticker of a pride flag with a rifle superimposed upon it and the words "Defend Equality." Also, the handle associated with the YouTube account includes the numbers "1312," a numerical code commonly used for the anti-police slogan "acab." On one firearm, the words "Kill Trump Now" are written in white ink.
But there are also numerous references to extremist movements on the right. Among the scrawls on the weaponry are mentions of Waco siege, a standoff in Texas between the federal government and a religious group that ended in the deaths of dozens of people, including children. Also referenced in the materials are the Weavers, the family at the center of the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho. Both of those events have long animated far-right antigovernment and militia sentiments.
The materials are filled with callbacks to neo-Nazi and violent white supremacist killers. Particularly influential, it seems, is a 2019 mass shooting in New Zealand, where a violent white supremacist and Islamophobe killed 51 people at two mosques. But also, in the notebook, the names of several 9/11 hijackers are listed along with other mass killers whom Westman apparently emulated.
