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  • Chileans are divided in a presidential runoff tilted toward the far right

    Chileans are divided in a presidential runoff tilted toward the far right

    SANTIAGO, Chile — Ask many Chileans how their country fared in the past several years and they’ll describe a descent into disaster: Venezuelan gangs surged across porous borders, bringing unprecedented kidnappings and contract killings to one of the region’s safest nations. A social uprising unleashed violent chaos on once-sleepy streets. An economy long vaunted for its rapid growth sputtered into a stall.

    These are the voters who hope to elect their country’s most right-wing president since its military dictatorship on Sunday.

    Former lawmaker José Antonio Kast, 59, they argue, can bring back the simple, stable life that Chileans lost to rising crime, uncontrolled migration, and left-wing excesses. Kast’s rival in this runoff presidential election is their worst fear: a communist.

    “We need to go back in time to when Chile meant peace and quiet, when there weren’t so many Venezuelans and Colombians in the streets, when you didn’t have to look over your shoulder every second,” said Ernesto Romero, 70, shucking corn at his vegetable stall in Chile’s capital of Santiago.

    A deeply polarized electorate

    Ask the same question to other Chileans and they’ll recount an opposite reality: A shorter workweek, higher minimum wage, and more generous pension system made one of Latin America’s most unequal countries more livable, they say. The homicide rate declined in the last two years, official figures show. A defiant foreign policy — outspoken about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro‘s repression, President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants, and Israel’s actions against Palestinians — made Chile a regional champion of democracy and human rights.

    These are the voters who hope, against heavy odds, to elect their country’s most left-wing president since its return to democracy in 1990.

    Jeannette Jara, 51, they argue, can save Chile from the wave of far-right populism that has upended politics across the world. Jara’s rival is their worst fear: the son of a Nazi party member with a fondness for Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship.

    “We need to go forward,” said Lucía Poblete, a 32-year-old engineer at Jara’s rally late Wednesday. “Kast will erase all the progress we’ve made for women, for labor rights, for civil freedoms.”

    The chasm between Chilean perspectives on the status quo underscores not only the depth of Chile’s divisions but also the stakes of Sunday’s showdown, which Kast is expected to win after 70% of voters backed right-leaning parties in the first round.

    Kast vows to make Chile safe again

    Today, Kast is hoping the third time’s the charm, and his presidential run has so far been a much more effective endeavor than the previous two. That’s largely thanks to fears of organized crime and immigration driving voters to the right.

    “Jara seems more grounded, more sensible. But it’s not the time for that. It’s time for drastic measures, for shows of force,” said Eduardo Marillana, 48, a former Jara supporter who jumped ship for Kast after his truck was stolen a few weeks ago. “Whether we like it or not, we need the far right now.”

    In 2021, the Catholic father of nine lost the runoff election to current President Gabriel Boric, a former firebrand student protest leader who rattled investors with his promises to “bury neoliberalism” but appealed to millions of ordinary Chileans sick of fiscal austerity, angry about social inequality, and eager to reexamine Chile’s traumatic past.

    Kast’s family ties to the Nazi party sparked an uproar at the time — as did his apparent nostalgia for Gen. Pinochet (who he said “would vote for me if he were alive”) and his fierce opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion without exception.

    This time, Kast has dodged questions about his social views, pivoting to the more politically palatable issues of insecurity and mass migration that have ginned up voter anxiety and boosted the right from Washington to Paris.

    Taking a page from Trump’s playbook, Kast vows mass deportations of the estimated 337,000 migrants in Chile without legal status — mostly Venezuelans who arrived from their crisis-stricken country in the last seven years.

    Studying the crime-fighting tactics of El Salvador’s popular autocratic president, Nayib Bukele, Kast proposes boosting the power of police and expanding maximum-security prison capacity.

    Borrowing from Argentina’s radical libertarian President Javier Milei, Kast aims to slash red tape, shrink the public payroll, and cut state spending by $6 billion within just 18 months of taking office.

    His economic team on Thursday pushed back against criticism that such a budget cut was unrealistic — or unnecessary as Chile’s budget strains pale next to Argentina’s economic shambles.

    But it acknowledged to the Associated Press that it might be “preferable to allow for an adjustment over a longer period.”

    Underdog Jara faces tough odds

    Perhaps at any other moment, Jara would have a lot going for her.

    She engineered Boric’s most significant welfare measures as his minister of labor. Her humble origins selling hot dogs and toilet paper to get through school makes for a compelling up-from-nothing story rare in Chile’s elite circles of power. She has a strong record of negotiating with rivals to get things done.

    But experts say it’ll take a miracle for her to pry a victory from Kast.

    “There are just too many things stacked against her,” said Robert Funk, associate professor of political science at the University of Chile.

    The most glaring: being a communist. Although her proposals to boost foreign investment and promote fiscal restraint hardly smack of communism, analysts say her membership in the party since age 14 undercuts efforts to lure moderate conservatives.

    “Just the name ‘Communist Party scares people,” said Lucía Dammert, a sociologist and Boric’s first chief of staff.

    Then there’s the challenge of representing a government with a 30% approval rating in a country where citizens have voted out incumbent leaders at every election since 2005. Add to that the difficulty of appearing tough on crime next to Kast.

    “This campaign is among the most difficult I’ve ever run, by far,” Ricardo Solari, Jara’s campaign strategist and a former minister, told the AP.

    What keeps Jara in the game, he insisted, is her appeal as a bulwark against the sort of right-wing radicalism that has eroded the rule of law elsewhere.

    “The right exaggerates insecurity to convince people that the only possible response is extreme force,” Solari said. “We’ve seen elsewhere in Latin America that when that happens, ultimately what gets imprisoned is democracy itself.”

  • National Trust sues to stop Trump’s ballroom construction

    National Trust sues to stop Trump’s ballroom construction

    Historic preservationists begged President Donald Trump in October not to rapidly demolish the White House’s East Wing annex for his ballroom project, urging him to wait for federal review panels and allow the public to weigh in. Now a group charged by Congress with helping to preserve historic buildings is asking a judge to block construction until those reviews occur, arguing that the ongoing project is illegal and unconstitutional.

    The lawsuit from the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, represents the first major legal challenge to Trump’s planned 90,000-square-foot addition and is poised to test the limits of his power. The organization argues that the administration failed to undergo legally required reviews or receive congressional authorization for the project, which Trump has rushed to launch in hopes of completing it before his term ends in 2029.

    “No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Joe Biden, and not anyone else,” the complaint says.

    Comcast is one of 37 ‘patriot donors’ paying for Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom

    The administration in October rapidly demolished the East Wing to make way for the ballroom over the objections of the National Trust and other historic preservationists who urged the White House to pause its demolition, submit its plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, and seek public comment.

    Officials responded by saying they would work with the commission, a board that oversees federal building projects and is now led by Trump allies, “at the appropriate time.” It has yet to do so, even as regular work continues on the former East Wing site.

    The White House did not immediately respond Friday morning to questions about the lawsuit. The administration has maintained that Trump has authority over White House grounds and is working to improve them at no cost to taxpayers, dismissing critics as “unhinged leftists” who seized on the imagery of bulldozers tearing down what has been called “the People’s House” as a metaphor for the opening year of his term.

    “The lawsuit is our last resort,” Carol Quillen, National Trust’s CEO, said in an interview. “We serve the people, and the people are not being served in this process.”

    Nothing about Trump’s ballroom benefits us | Jenice Armstrong

    The National Trust is seeking a temporary restraining order on construction as the court reviews its claims, its lawyers said. One of those lawyers is Greg Craig, a Foley Hoag lawyer who previously served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama, and who is working pro bono on the case. Craig also served as President Bill Clinton’s lawyer during Republicans’ efforts to impeach Clinton in the late 1990s.

    Trump has made the ballroom a focus and frequent talking point in the opening year of his second term, and administration officials have acknowledged that he is involved to the point of micromanagement.

    “In a very short period of time — like about a year and a half — you’re going to have the best ballroom anywhere in the country,” Trump told lawmakers at the White House on Thursday night.

    The president has also maintained that he is not bound by typical building restrictions or the need to seek construction approvals, citing conversations with advisers and experts.

    “They said, ‘Sir, this is the White House. You’re the president of the United States, you can do anything you want,’” Trump said at an October dinner to celebrate the ballroom’s donors.

    Jeffrey Yass, Pa.’s richest man, donated at least $2.5 million to Trump’s White House ballroom

    Several polls have shown that the ballroom project is broadly unpopular, and Democrats have consistently attacked it, eager to contrast the president’s focus on a luxurious ballroom against many Americans’ concerns about affordability. Some conservatives have also questioned Trump’s plans and pace, asking why the administration did not undergo a formal review process before tearing down part of the symbolic seat of government. The president and his original handpicked architect battled over Trump’s desire to expand the ballroom’s size before Trump replaced him, the Washington Post previously reported.

    The $300 million project is being funded by wealthy individuals and large companies that have contracts with the federal government, including Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir Technologies. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Post.) The administration has released a partial list of contributors but granted some anonymity — eliciting concerns from Democratic lawmakers and others, some of which are reflected in the complaint.

    The National Trust, for example, alleges that the Trump administration violated the Constitution’s property clause, which authorizes Congress to oversee property on federal land.

    The National Trust’s lawsuit names Trump and other administration officials, including at the National Park Service and the General Services Administration, as defendants. The National Trust argues that the ballroom plans are legally required to be reviewed by the NCPC and the Commission on Fine Arts, another federal panel, which is without members after Trump fired them in October. The organization also contends that the White House has failed to fulfill its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act to conduct and publish an assessment of the environmental impact of tearing down the East Wing and disposing of the debris, particularly given concerns about environmental contamination.

    White House officials have previously dismissed criticism from the National Trust, arguing that its leaders are “loser Democrats and liberal donors” who oppose Trump on political grounds. The National Trust has a decades-long association with Trump: In 1995, he donated easements to the organization that made his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida a historic property in exchange for tax breaks. National Trust officials have said they subsequently worked with the Trump organization on “collaborative” construction projects at the resort, including its ballroom.

    The White House also has defended the project by drawing a distinction between construction on the White House grounds, which administration officials say is covered by federal review panels, and demolition and site prep, which they maintain is not.

    However, the National Trust says that this is a distinction without a difference. Recent photos have shown that heavy construction machinery and teams of people are working regularly on the site, and Trump has said that pile drivers are operating “all day, all night.”

    The group’s lawsuit also cites the White House’s own public timeline for the project, which includes a section that says “construction commences” and that it “kicked off in September 2025.”

    Quillen said she did not have a “hard objection” to a White House ballroom — so long as its size, materials and design were consistent with the White House and did not overshadow the main building. It is the National Trust’s job, she said, to preserve American history, particularly at the White House, given the building’s iconic status and central role. She noted that the organization has also brought legal challenges to past administrations’ construction projects.

    “Following the process and enabling public input often results in a better project outcome,” Quillen said.

  • Best-selling British writer Joanna Trollope has died at 82

    Best-selling British writer Joanna Trollope has died at 82

    LONDON — British writer Joanna Trollope, whose best-selling novels charted domestic and romantic travails in well-heeled rural England, has died, her family said Friday. She was 82.

    Ms. Trollope’s daughters, Antonia and Louise, said the writer died peacefully at her home in Oxfordshire, southern England, on Thursday.

    Ms. Trollope wrote almost two dozen contemporary novels, including The Rector’s Wife, Marrying the Mistress, Other People’s Children, and Next of Kin. They were often dubbed “Aga sagas,” after the old-fashioned Aga ovens found in affluent country homes.

    Ms. Trollope disliked the term, noting that her books tackled uncomfortable subjects including infidelity, marital breakdown, and the challenges of parenting.

    “That was a very unfortunate phrase and I think it’s done me a lot of damage,” she once said. ”It was so patronizing to the readers, too.”

    Ms. Trollope’s most recent novel, Mum & Dad, examined the “sandwich generation” of middle-aged people looking after both children and elderly parents.

    Ms. Trollope also published 10 historical novels under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey.

    Ms. Trollope, a distant relative of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, was born in Minchinhampton in the west of England in 1943. She studied English at Oxford University, then worked in Britain’s Foreign Office and as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1980. She became a household name after The Rector’s Wife was adapted for television in 1991.

    Ms. Trollope’s novel Parson Harding’s Daughter won a novel of the year award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association in 1980. In 2010, the association gave her a lifetime achievement award for services to romance.

    In 2019, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, by Queen Elizabeth II.

    Her literary agent, James Gill, called Ms. Trollope “one of our most cherished, acclaimed and widely enjoyed novelists.

    “Joanna will be mourned by her children, grandchildren, family, her countless friends and — of course — her readers,” Gill said.

  • Iran arrests Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, supporters say

    Iran arrests Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, supporters say

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran has arrested Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, her supporters said Friday.

    A foundation in her name said she was detained in Mashhad, about 420 miles northeast of the capital, Tehran, while attending a memorial for a human rights lawyer recently found dead under unclear circumstances.

    A local official reportedly acknowledged arrests had been made, but did not directly name Mohammadi, 53. It wasn’t clear if authorities would immediately return her to prison, where she had been serving a sentence until her temporary release in December 2024 for medical purposes.

    From 2023: Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting women’s oppression

    However, her detention comes as Iran has been cracking down on intellectuals and others as Tehran struggles with sanctions, an ailing economy and the fear of a renewed war with Israel. Arresting Mohammadi may spark increased pressure from the West at a time when Iran repeatedly signals it wants new negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program — something that has yet to happen.

    Activist detained at ceremony for dead lawyer

    Her supporters on Friday described her as having been “violently detained earlier today by security and police forces.” They said other activists had been arrested as well at a ceremony honoring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad.

    “The Narges Foundation calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all detained individuals who were attending a memorial ceremony to pay their respects and demonstrate solidarity,” a statement read. “Their arrest constitutes a serious violation of fundamental freedoms.”

    Alikordi was found dead earlier this month in his office, with officials in Razavi Khorasan describing his death as a heart attack. However, a tightening security crackdown coincided with his death, raising questions. Over 80 lawyers signed a statement demanding more information.

    “Alikordi was a prominent figure among Iran’s community of human rights defenders,” the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said Thursday. “Over the past several years, he had been repeatedly arrested, harassed and threatened by security and judicial forces.”

    Footage purportedly of the ceremony showed Mohammadi on a microphone, calling out to the crowd gathered without wearing a hijab, or headscarf. She started the crowd chanting the name Majidreza Rahnavard, a man whom authorities hanged from a crane in a public execution in 2022.

    Footage published by her foundation also showed her without a hijab, surrounded by a large crowd.

    Hasan Hosseini, the city governor of Mashhad, said prosecutors ordered security officials to temporarily detain a number of participants at the ceremony after the chanting of “norm-breaking” slogans, Iranian state television reported.

    Hosseini described the detentions as preventive to protect those there from others in the crowd, but did not address claims that security forces used violence in making the arrests.

    Other anti-government chants could be heard in purported video footage of the event.

    Mohammadi had been on furlough for months

    Supporters had warned for months that Mohammadi was at risk of being put back into prison after she received a furlough in December 2024 over medical concerns.

    While that was to be only three weeks, Mohammadi’s time out of prison lengthened, possibly as activists and Western powers pushed Iran to keep her free. She remained out even during the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.

    Mohammadi still kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating at one point in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.

    Mohammadi had been serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government. She also had backed the nationwide protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which have seen women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab.

    Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous that later was removed.

    “Mohammadi’s doctors recently prescribed an extension of her medical leave for at least six more months to conduct thorough and regular medical examinations, including monitoring the bone lesion which was removed from her leg in November, physiotherapy sessions to recover from the surgery and specialized cardiac care,” the Free Narges Coalition said in late February 2025.

    “The medical team overseeing Mohammadi’s health has warned that her return to prison — especially under stressful conditions of detention and without adequate medical facilities — could severely worsen her physical well-being.”

    An engineer by training, Mohammadi has been imprisoned 13 times and convicted five. In total, she has been sentenced to over 30 years in prison. Her last incarceration began when she was detained in 2021 after attending a memorial for a person killed in nationwide protests.

  • This musician taught an octopus to play the piano

    This musician taught an octopus to play the piano

    The white package that arrived at Mattias Krantz’s home in Sweden after a five-hour flight contained an octopus that Krantz saved from becoming someone’s meal.

    Krantz’s hopes for the octopus, which he named Takoyaki, were high — maybe unreasonably so. Within about six months, Krantz wanted Takoyaki to play the piano so well that the animal could perform “Under the Sea” and the theme from the movie Jaws.

    Krantz, who typically makes YouTube videos playing instruments he modifies, had long wanted to teach piano to an animal. Krantz said octopuses, whose eight arms can each act somewhat independently because of the neurons inside them, had the most potential.

    But the task proved more difficult — and fulfilling — than Krantz imagined, requiring hundreds of hours and a wealth of patience. His YouTube video detailing the teaching process has more than 6 million views.

    “It was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done, and maybe the coolest thing, but also the worst ever,” Krantz, 28, told the Washington Post. “I never pushed myself to such limits.”

    Takoyaki, an octopus, played piano keys while Mattias Krantz played an acoustic guitar.

    Krantz purchased Takoyaki from a Portuguese fishery in March; he did not buy the octopus from a Korean market as is depicted in his YouTube video. Once Krantz got the octopus into his home, he dumped the creature into a roughly 110-gallon tank containing rocks, sand, and dog toys. The tank was connected to machines that filtered water and removed octopus waste.

    “You’re going to be the greatest pianist the sea has ever known,” Krantz told Takoyaki, which he nicknamed Tako.

    Mattias Krantz bought Takoyaki, an octopus, from a Portuguese fishery in March.

    But first, Krantz had to earn Tako’s trust.

    On the first day in its tank, Tako hid behind rocks and didn’t eat the small crabs and mussels Krantz had fished off Sweden’s southern coast. Tako began eating on the second day, and soon Krantz gave Tako a simple task to judge whether the octopus was up for the piano challenge: Take a plastic lid off a glass jar containing crab and shrimp. Tako passed the test after about three days.

    Krantz then designed a piano key on his computer, 3D-printed it and set it down in the tank. When Tako touched the key on the second day, Krantz gave the octopus a treat. But Krantz wanted Tako to push the key to play a note, so he added a white lever that Tako wrapped its arms around and pulled to make a sound (Tako also broke the key off its mount a few times and hid it under rocks).

    After that first success, Krantz built Tako a 15-key piano — a process Tako seemed to watch closely by pressing its body against the glass. But when Krantz placed the piano in the tank, Tako sat on it instead of playing it.

    One of Takoyaki’s first tasks was to open a plastic lid off a glass jar.

    So Krantz tried different approaches.

    First, he added a blue underwater speaker that allowed Tako — whose species has poor hearing — to feel a vibration when the octopus played a key. Tako began playing random notes, Krantz said, but he wanted Tako to play particular keys to form a melody.

    Krantz added symbols to the keys he wanted Tako to play — circles, crosses, and stripes — which Tako didn’t respond to. Krantz even added pictures of an orange crab to the keys. The octopus was interested in the pictures but not in playing the keys.

    Takoyaki took the piano key Mattias Krantz made.

    But one thing seemed to grab Tako’s attention: movement. When a bubble formed in the tank, Tako chased it.

    So, with fishing wire, Krantz wiggled the lever on the keys he wanted Tako to play. It worked — despite Tako also spending time playing the wires like a harp. (Marine scientist Jenny Hofmeister said octopuses are attracted to movement because it might signal prey.)

    After a week, Tako played two notes in a row. After two weeks, Tako played a pair of notes simultaneously.

    After Mattias Krantz built Takoyaki a 15-key piano, the octopus seemed to resist Krantz pointing to the keys from inside the tank.

    But in the following weeks — after about four months of training — Tako plateaued.

    Plus — as expected from an octopus — Tako wasn’t focused on learning the instrument. Tako wrapped its arms around the GoPro camera in its tank, squirted water at Krantz, and, once, escaped the tank and hid in a cupboard.

    Krantz lost hope that Tako could learn to play.

    Takoyaki sometimes squirted water outside of the tank.

    But Tako stared at the piano, which sat on the ground beside the tank, throughout the day, appearing to want to play at the usual 6 p.m. training time, Krantz said. So Krantz experimented with a new strategy.

    “The one thing I’m really good at is insane stubbornness,” Krantz said.

    In early August, he placed an acrylic tube inside the tank and inserted a crab — Tako’s favorite treat — at the top. When Tako played a key, Krantz lowered the crab closer to the bottom of the tube. Krantz called his device the “crab elevator.”

    Mattias Krantz built a “crab elevator” for his octopus, Takoyaki.

    Tako initially tried to retrieve the crab by swimming into the tube and attempting to pull the crab down. But once Tako saw the crab inch closer after playing a note, the octopus became more motivated to play. After a few weeks, Krantz gave Tako the crab once the octopus played seven or eight keys.

    In mid-August, Krantz began playing chord progressions on his acoustic guitar and simultaneously wiggled keys for Tako to play so they could perform together. Krantz fed Tako after each recital.

    Krantz never taught Tako to consistently play the right keys at the right times. Sometimes the piano sounded good; other times, not so much. Tako played the keys to “Baby Shark” — even if it was off tempo, Krantz said.

    “I can’t believe I sit here and play with an octopus,” Mattias Krantz said.

    But the fact that Tako could play keys at all was like a “fever dream,” Krantz said.

    Hofmeister, the marine scientist, said Tako probably didn’t know he was playing the piano; he was motivated by food.

    Octopuses are smart in their own ways: They change colors based on their surroundings, build dens with stones, use makeshift weapons, throw objects at targets, and eject ink clouds when they’re in danger.

    Takoyaki, an octopus, seemed to enjoy playing piano keys.

    “The octopus is not perceiving rhythm,” Hofmeister said. “It’s not perceiving, you know, tempo. It wants to do the steps it has to do to get the crab.”

    She said teaching an octopus to play the piano perfectly is nearly impossible.

    But in addition to creating music, Krantz received another benefit from the process: a friend. He has kept Takoyaki — the name means grilled octopus — as a pet.

    Takoyaki still plays the piano about every other day.

    Octopuses typically live for a year or two, and Krantz said Tako, which he estimated to be about 14 months old, now sleeps most of the day. But that hasn’t stopped Tako from continuing to practice its unique skill; the octopus plays piano about every other day.

    The recitals still leave Krantz in awe.

    “I can’t believe I sit here,” Krantz said last week, “and play with an octopus.”

  • Federal judge issues order to prohibit immigration officials from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia

    Federal judge issues order to prohibit immigration officials from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia

    BALTIMORE — A federal judge blocked U.S. immigration authorities on Friday from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying she feared they might take him into custody again just hours after she had ordered his release from a detention center.

    The order came as Abrego Garcia appeared at a scheduled appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office roughly 14 hours after he walked out of immigration detention facility in Pennsylvania.

    Kilmar Abrego Garcia is freed from immigrant detention center in Pennsylvania after judge’s order

    His lawyers had sent an urgent request to the judge, warning that ICE officials could immediately place him back into custody. Instead, Abrego Garcia exited the building after a short appointment, emerging to cheers from supporters who had gathered outside.

    Speaking briefly to the crowd, he urged others to “stand tall” against what he described as injustices carried out by the government.

    Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown earlier this year when he was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He was last taken into custody in August during a similar check-in.

    Officials cannot re-detain him until the court conducts a hearing on the motion for the temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said. She wrote that Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further request for relief from ICE detention.

    “For the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration,” she wrote.

    Abrego Garcia on Friday stopped at a news conference outside the building, escorted by a group of supporters chanting “We are all Kilmar!”

    Inside Pa.’s largest immigrant detention center: Violence, desperation, little oversight

    Abrego Garcia says he has ‘so much hope’

    “I stand before you a free man and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” Abrego Garcia said through a translator. “I come here today with so much hope and I thank God who has been with me since the start with my family.”

    He urged people to keep fighting.

    After Abrego Garcia spoke, he went through security at the field office, escorted by supporters.

    When Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, announced to the crowd assembled outside that his client would walk back out the field office’s doors again, he stressed that the legal fight was not over.

    “Yesterday’s order from Judge Xinis and now the temporary restraining order this morning represent a victory of law over power,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

    The agency freed him just before 5 p.m. on Thursday in response to a ruling from Xinis, who wrote federal authorities detained him after his return to the United States without any legal basis.

    Kilmar Abrego Garcia waits with Lydia Walther-Rodriguez of Casa in Maryland, left, to enter the building for a mandatory check at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, after he was released from detention on Thursday under a judge’s order. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

    Mistakenly deported and then returned

    Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, where he faces danger from a gang that targeted his family.

    While he was allowed to live and work in the U.S. under ICE supervision, he was not given residency status. Earlier this year, he was mistakenly deported and held in a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record.

    Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump’s Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked a federal judge there to dismiss them.

    A lawsuit to block removal from the U.S.

    The 2019 settlement found he had a “well founded fear” of danger in El Salvador if he was deported there. So instead ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries. Abrego Garcia has sued, claiming the Trump administration is illegally using the removal process to punish him for the public embarrassment caused by his deportation.

    In her order releasing Abrego Garcia, Xinis wrote that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” the court, “They affirmatively misled the tribunal.” Xinis also rejected the government’s argument that she lacked jurisdiction to intervene on a final removal order for Abrego Garcia, because she found no final order had been filed.

    ICE freed Abrego Garcia from Moshannon Valley Processing Center, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday just before the deadline Xinis gave the government to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s release.

    He returned home to Maryland a few hours later.

    Immigration check-in

    Check-ins are how ICE keeps track of some people who are released by the government to pursue asylum or other immigration cases as they make their way through a backlogged court system. The appointments were once routine but many people have been detained at their check-ins since the start of Trump’s second term.

    The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized Xinis’ order and vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed during the Obama administration.

    “This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary.

    Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge made it clear that the government can’t detain someone indefinitely without legal authority.

    Abrego Garcia has also applied for asylum in the U.S. in immigration court.

    Charges in Tennessee

    Abrego Garcia was hit with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling charges when the U.S. government brought him back from El Salvador. Prosecutors alleged he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.

    The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

    A Department of Homeland Security agent testified at an earlier hearing that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.

  • Silver prices just smashed a new record. What does this mean for the economy?

    Silver prices just smashed a new record. What does this mean for the economy?

    Silver is giving gold a run for the money.

    The precious metal has more than doubled in value since the start of the year and broke a fresh record on Tuesday, rising above $60 per troy ounce on New York’s Commodity Exchange for the first time ever. Now it’s up 102% for 2025 — far outpacing the record-building rush that has lifted gold 59%.

    A mix of forces are boosting silver, including the weakened dollar, tariff politics, and supply shortages. Especially critical in recent weeks, though, was the growing expectation that the Federal Reserve would announce another rate cut, which it did on Wednesday, as the U.S. economy continues to slow down. Analysts say that’s likely to further pressure the dollar lower while lifting silver — a classic safe-haven asset — even higher.

    In light of Fed concerns, “precious metals prices are rising as a bit of a hedge,” said Michael Farr of the D.C.-based investment firm Farr, Miller & Washington, ahead of the meeting.

    But silver’s rise is also a global story with a combination of forces at play. Here’s what you need to know about its soaring popularity.

    Dollar weakness and the ‘debasement trade’

    The softening of the greenback — which depreciated about 8.5% since the start of the year — is a big part of the story. Most of this drop occurred in the first half of the year, after the Trump administration unleashed steep tariffs on trading allies and competitors alike and reduced U.S. attractiveness as a reliable trade and investment partner. At the same time, rising U.S. debt and lingering concerns about inflation have also diminished the dollar’s value.

    The weakened dollar, in turn, has been driving what’s known as the “debasement trade”: Investors are looking for other assets — which include gold as well as silver — because the dollar is no longer seen as ultrasafe as it used to be, said Collamore Crocker of the economic consultancy New Century Advisers.

    “‘Concern’ is a big piece of the trade‚” Cocker said. “If you’re worried about governments undermining the value of their own currencies, you might buy precious metals.”

    The Fed rate decision could very well push the dollar down even more. Typically, lower interest rates make a currency less attractive for investors because there’s a lower return on assets in that currency.

    “Lower rates are bullish for precious metals,” said Bob Gottlieb, an independent consultant who previously worked at JP Morgan and other financial institutions.

    The tariff factor

    Traditionally, silver tends to be more volatile compared to gold and more sensitive to policy changes, say analysts. Tariffs are a good example. Recently, concerns spiked that the U.S. could add tariffs specifically for silver after it was added to the U.S. Geological Survey’s list of critical minerals last month, along with copper, lead, and other rare metals.

    The list allows the federal government to “understand where strategic domestic investments or international trade relationships may help mitigate risk to individual supply chains,” USGS acting director Sarah Ryker said in a statement.

    Adding a metal to the list can signal tariffs to come, and many investors reacted accordingly, pushing silver higher. The threat of additional tariffs has also led metals traders to shift silver to the United States and out of London or Shanghai, as a way to preempt the hit from new import taxes on the precious metal.

    Demand and supply squeeze

    The tariff uncertainty and dollar weakness are coinciding with a long-running silver shortage. A recent report from the Silver Institute estimated industrial demand for silver has soared about 18% over the past four years, due in part to India — now the world’s second-largest market for silver investment, according to Kitco News, a metals publication.

    Silver is culturally seen as a “poor man’s gold,” said Hiren Chandaria, managing director at the financial firm Monetary Metals. “With gold prices rising so high, many households and smaller investors have shifted toward silver as a more affordable precious metals store of value, so investment and gifting demand has shot up alongside traditional jewelry and silverware buying.”

    Investor demand from India is also spurred by a recent decision by the country’s central bank that allowed for regulated silver-backed loans. The Silver Institute has reported roughly a doubling in silver-backed exchange-traded fund price in India since January 2023, amid a surge of investment.

    Beyond India, broader supply crunches are in play. The world’s mines are expected to produce only about 813 million ounces of silver this year, slightly less than they did in 2021, according to the Silver Institute. Mines can only produce so much each year, and it takes many years to get a new one up and running — something that puts a cap on supply.

    Industrial demand

    The buying frenzy for silver and resulting shortage are also driven by technological change across the industrial world that has unfolded over the past five years.

    While gold has relatively little practical use aside from jewelry, silver is a high-quality conductor of electricity and heat and holds a range of industrial applications — “at the cusp of precious metals and industrial metals,” as Chandaria describes it.

    Surging investments in electric vehicles and artificial-intelligence data centers, for example, are among the sectors driving demand. Silver is laced throughout electric vehicles and their batteries, which is one reason for its surge during the electric-vehicle investment boom by major automakers in recent years. It’s also used in AI semiconductors.

    “There is an inherent tightness still in the silver market … demand is greater than supply every year,” said Bob Gottlieb, a former metals trader with leading financial institutions.

    Meanwhile, the silver boom is lifting mining companies. Canada’s Wheaton Precious Metals, the largest silver mining company by market capitalization, has seen its stock price rise close to 85% year-to-date. Fresnillo, a Mexico City-based mining company that bills itself as the world’s leading producer of silver ore, is up 365% since the start of the year, while Mexico’s Industrias Peñoles has risen around 230%. Canadian mining conglomerate Pan-American Silver rose 105%.

    Gottlieb, the metals trader, says he believes silver will settle between $50 and $75 an ounce over the next year, adding that he views India’s demand as grounds to stay bullish. But he also urged caution. “I learned a long time ago that whenever you forecast a price, the real movement is not from what you forecasted,” Gottlieb said.

  • Trump seeks to cut restrictions on marijuana through planned order

    Trump seeks to cut restrictions on marijuana through planned order

    President Donald Trump is expected to push the government to dramatically loosen federal restrictions on marijuana, reducing oversight of the plant and its derivatives to the same level as some common prescription painkillers and other drugs, according to six people familiar with the discussions.

    Trump discussed the plan with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) in a Wednesday phone call from the Oval Office, said four of the people, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The president is expected to seek to ease access to the drug through an upcoming executive order that directs federal agencies to pursue reclassification, the people said.

    The move would not legalize or decriminalize marijuana, but it would ease barriers to research and boost the bottom lines of legal businesses.

    Trump in August said he was “looking at reclassification.” He would be finishing what started under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, which followed the recommendation of federal health officials in proposing a rule to reclassify marijuana; that proposal has stalled since Trump took office.

    “We’re looking at it. Some people like it, some people hate it,” Trump said this summer. “Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana because it does bad for the children, it does bad for the people that are older than children.”

    Trump cannot unilaterally reclassify marijuana, said Shane Pennington, a D.C. attorney who represents two pro-rescheduling companies involved in the hearing. But he can direct the Justice Department to forgo the hearing and issue the final rule, Pennington said.

    “This would be the biggest reform in federal cannabis policy since marijuana was made a Schedule I drug in the 1970s,” Pennington said.

    The president was joined on the Wednesday call with Johnson by marijuana industry executives, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Mehmet Oz, three of the people said.

    Johnson was skeptical of the idea and gave a list of reasons, including several studies and data, to support his position against reclassifying the drug, two of the people said.

    Trump then turned the phone over to the executives gathered around his desk, who rebutted Johnson’s arguments, the people said.

    Trump ended the call appearing ready to go ahead with loosing restrictions on marijuana, the people said, though they caution the plans were not finalized and Trump could still change his mind.

    A White House official said no final decisions have been made on rescheduling of marijuana.

    The Department of Health and Human Services referred questions to the White House. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative from Johnson’s office declined to comment.

    Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I substance, the same classification as heroin and LSD. Federal regulations consider those drugs to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted use for medical treatment.

    Trump would move to classify marijuana as a Schedule III substance, which regulators say carry less potential for abuse and are used for certain medical treatments, but can also create risks of physical or psychological dependence.

    Other Schedule III drugs include Tylenol with codeine, as well as certain steroid and hormone treatments.

    Democrats and Republicans alike have been interested in reclassifying marijuana, with some politicians citing its potential benefit as a medical treatment and the political popularity of the widely used drug.

    Marijuana has become easier than ever to obtain, growing into an industry worth billions of dollars in the United States. Dozens of states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana programs, and 24 have approved recreational marijuana.

    The Biden administration pursued efforts to ease access to the drug, with health officials recommending reclassification to Schedule III in 2023. But health officials have said that those recommendations were slowed down by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which took months to undergo required administrative reviews and were not completed before the end of Biden’s term.

    The Drug Enforcement Administration was supposed to hold an administrative hearing on the proposal, with a judge hearing from experts on the health benefits and risks of marijuana. But the hearing has been in legal limbo since Trump took office, amid allegations from cannabis companies that the DEA was working to torpedo the measure.

  • Accused Charlie Kirk killer makes 1st in-person court appearance as judge weighs media access

    Accused Charlie Kirk killer makes 1st in-person court appearance as judge weighs media access

    PROVO, Utah — The Utah man charged with killing Charlie Kirk made his first in-person court appearance Thursday as his attorneys pushed to further limit media access in the high-profile criminal case.

    Prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 shooting of the conservative activist on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, just a few miles north of the Provo courthouse. They plan to seek the death penalty.

    Robinson, 22, arrived amid heavy security, shackled at the waist, wrists and ankles and wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks.

    He smiled at family members sitting in the front row of the courtroom, where his mother teared up after he entered the court. Next to her were Robinson’s brother and father, who took notes throughout the hearing.

    Early in the proceedings, state District Court Judge Tony Graf briefly stopped livestreaming of the hearing via a media pool and required the camera be moved, after Robinson’s attorneys said the stream showed the defendant’s shackles in violation of a courtroom order.

    Graf said he would terminate future broadcasts if there were further violations of the order issued in October, which bars media from showing images of Robinson in restraints or anywhere in the courtroom except sitting at the defense table.

    “This court takes this very seriously. While the court believes in openness and transparency, it needs to be balanced with the constitutional rights of all parties in this case,” Graf said.

    Graf is weighing the public’s right to know details about Robinson’s case against his attorneys’ concerns that the swarm of media attention could interfere with a fair trial.

    Robinson’s legal team and the Utah County Sheriff’s Office have asked Judge Tony Graf to ban cameras in the courtroom, but he has not yet ruled on the request.

    The defendant had previously appeared before the court via video or audio feed from jail.

    A coalition of national and local news organizations, including The Associated Press, is fighting to preserve media access in the case.

    Graf held a closed hearing on Oct. 24 in which attorneys discussed Robinson’s courtroom attire and security protocols. Under a subsequent ruling by the judge, Robinson is allowed to wear street clothes during pretrial hearings but must be physically restrained due to security concerns.

    Graf also prohibited media from filming or photographing Robinson’s restraints after his attorneys argued widespread images of him shackled and in jail clothing could prejudice future jurors.

    Several university students who witnessed Kirk’s assassination attended Thursday’s hearing.

    Zack Reese, a Utah Valley University student and “big Charlie Kirk fan,” said he had skepticism about Robinson’s arrest and came to the hearing seeking answers. Reese has family in southwestern Utah, where the Robinsons are from, and said he believes they’re a good family.

    Brigham Young University student William Brown, who said he was about 10 feet from Kirk when he was shot, said he felt overwhelmed seeing Robinson walk into the courtroom Thursday.

    “I witnessed a huge event, and my brain is still trying to make sense of it,” Brown said. “I feel like being here helps it feel more real than surreal.”

    Michael Judd, an attorney for the media coalition, has urged Graf to let the news organizations weigh in on any future requests for closed hearings or other limitations.

    The media presence at Utah hearings is already limited, with judges often designating one photographer and one videographer to document a hearing and share their images with other news organizations. Additional journalists can typically attend to listen and take notes, as can members of the public.

    Judd wrote in recent filings that an open court “safeguards the integrity of the fact-finding process” while fostering public confidence in judicial proceedings. Criminal cases in the U.S. have long been open to the public, which he argued is proof that trials can be conducted fairly without restricting reporters as they work to keep the public informed.

    Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has called for full transparency, saying, “We deserve to have cameras in there.” Her husband was an ally of President Donald Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism.

    Robinson’s legal team says his pretrial publicity reaches as far as the White House, with Trump announcing soon after Robinson’s arrest, “With a high degree of certainty, we have him,” and “I hope he gets the death penalty.”

    Defense attorney Kathy Nester has raised concern that digitally altered versions of Robinson’s initial court photo have spread widely, creating misinformation about the case. Some altered images show Robinson crying or having an outburst in court, which did not happen.

  • Winter storm rips through Gaza, exposing failure to deliver enough aid to territory

    Winter storm rips through Gaza, exposing failure to deliver enough aid to territory

    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Rains drenched Gaza’s tent camps and dropping temperatures chilled Palestinians huddling inside them Thursday as winter storm Byron descended on the war-battered territory, showing how two months of a ceasefire have failed to sufficiently address the spiraling humanitarian crisis there.

    Families found their possessions and food supplies soaked inside their tents. Children’s sandaled feet disappeared under opaque brown water that flooded the camps, running knee deep in some places. Dirt roads turned to mud. Piles of garbage and sewage cascaded like waterfalls.

    “We have been drowned. I don’t have clothes to wear and we have no mattresses left,” said Um Salman Abu Qenas, a displaced mother in a Khan Younis tent camp. She said that her family couldn’t sleep the night before, because of the water in the tent.

    Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel’s military suggest it hasn’t met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding.

    “Cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection,” the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X. “This suffering could be prevented by unhindered humanitarian aid, including medical support and proper shelter.”

    Rains wreak havoc

    Sabreen Qudeeh, also in the Khan Younis camp, in a squalid area known as Muwasi, said that her family woke up to rain leaking from their tent’s ceiling and water from the street soaking their mattresses.

    “My little daughters were screaming,” she said.

    Ahmad Abu Taha, also living in the camp, said there wasn’t a tent that escaped the flooding. “Conditions are very bad, we have old people, displaced, and sick people inside this camp,” he said.

    Floods in south-central Israel trapped more than a dozen people in their cars, according to Hebrew media. Israel’s rescue services, MDA, said that two young girls were slightly injured when a tree fell on their school.

    The contrasting scenes with Gaza made clear how profoundly the Israel-Hamas war had damaged the territory, destroying the majority of homes. Gaza’s population of around 2 million is almost entirely displaced, and most people live in vast tent camps stretching along the coast, or set up among the shells of damaged buildings without adequate flooding infrastructure and with cesspits dug near tents as toilets.

    At least three buildings in Gaza City already damaged by Israeli bombardment during the war partially collapsed under the rain, Palestinian Civil Defense said. It warned people not to stay inside damaged buildings, saying they too could fall down on top of them.

    The agency also said that since the storm began, they have received more than 2,500 distress calls from people across Gaza whose tents and shelters were damaged.

    With buckets and mops, Palestinians laboriously scooped water out of their tents.

    Aliaa Bahtiti said her 8-year-old son “was soaked overnight, and in the morning he had turned blue, sleeping on water.” Her tent floor had an inch of water on it “We cannot buy food, covers, towels, or sheets to sleep on.”

    Baraka Bhar was caring for her 3-month-old twins inside her tent as the rain poured outside. One of the twins has hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluids in the brain.

    “Our tents are worn out … and they leak rain water,” she said. “We should not lose our children this winter.”

    Not enough aid

    Aid groups say that Israel isn’t allowing enough aid into Gaza to begin rebuilding the territory after years of war.

    Under the agreement, Israel agreed to comply with aid stipulations from an earlier January truce, which specified that it allow 600 trucks of aid each day into Gaza, It maintains it’s doing so, but The Associated Press found that some of its own figures call that into question.

    The January truce also specified that Israel let in a number of caravans and tents. No caravans have yet entered Gaza during the ceasefire, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli group advocating for Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement.

    The Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, called COGAT, said on Dec. 9 it had “lately” let 260,000 tents and tarpaulins into Gaza and more than 1,500 trucks of blankets and warm clothing.

    Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, sets the number lower. It says the U.N. and international nongovernmental organizations have gotten 15,590 tents into Gaza since the truce began, and other countries have sent about 48,000. Many of the tents aren’t properly insulated, it says.

    Amjad al-Shawa, Gaza chief of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that only a fraction of the 300,000 tents needed had entered Gaza. He said that Palestinians were in dire need of warmer winter clothes and accused Israel of blocking the entry of water pumps to help clear flooded shelters.

    “All international sides should take the responsibility regarding conditions in Gaza,” he said. “There is real danger for people in Gaza at all levels.”

    Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Gaza needs the rehabilitation of hospitals, the entry of heavy machinery to remove rubble, and the opening of the Rafah crossing — which remains closed after Israel said last week it would shortly open.

    COGAT didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the claims that Israel wasn’t allowing water pumps or heavy machinery into Gaza

    Amnesty accuses Hamas of crimes against humanity

    Amnesty International said in a report released Thursday that Hamas and other militant groups committed crimes against humanity in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

    In the 173-page report, Amnesty pointed to what it found to be widespread and systematic killing of civilians in the attack, as well as torture, hostage-taking and sexual abuse.

    In the attack, Hamas fighters and other militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 70,300 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. Last year, Amnesty accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denied.

    Amnesty said it conducted interviews with 70 people, including 17 survivors of the attack and family members of some of those killed. It also reviewed hundreds of open-source videos and photos from the day of the attack.

    Contrary to Hamas claims it was targeting the military, it said, the attack was intentionally “directed against a civilian population” and met international law standards for crimes against humanity.

    It said sexual assaults were also committed, although it could not reach a conclusion on their “scope or scale.” It interviewed one man who testified he was raped by armed men at the Nova music festival, as well as a therapist who said she provided intensive treatment to three other survivors of rape.

    Hamas condemned the report, saying it “echoed false claims” by Israel.

    Israeli Foreign Minister spokesperson Oren Marmorstein derided the report in a posting on X, saying it took more than two years for Amnesty to address the attack “and even now its report falls far short of reflecting the full scope of Hamas’ horrific atrocities.”