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U.S. spending millions to send migrants to third countries, report says

The Trump administration spent more than $40 million last year to send hundreds of migrants to at least two-dozen countries that are not their own, a tactic Senate Democrats described in a report Friday as a costly strategy aimed at sowing fear and intimidation in the president’s mass deportation campaign.

The 30-page analysis from the minority members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accuses the administration of entering into opaque financial agreements with foreign governments — including some with poor records on corruption and human rights — to rapidly expand a program for “third country” removals that once had been reserved for exceptional circumstances.

Its authors contend that the State Department has failed to conduct sufficient oversight to ensure that payments to those countries are not being misspent and that migrants transferred to their custody are not being abused or mistreated.

The administration “has expanded and institutionalized a system in which the United States urges or coerces countries to accept migrants who are not their citizens, often through arrangements that are costly, inefficient and poorly monitored,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Deporting migrants to countries they have no connection to … has become a routine instrument of diplomacy.”

Administration officials have said they have no choice but to partner with foreign governments that are willing to accept undocumented immigrants whose native nations are not willing to take them back. In most cases, the migrants have criminal records, authorities said, though public records have shown that some have not been convicted of crimes in the United States.

The report from Senate Democrats, which provides the most comprehensive look at the administration’s third-country removal program, found that the U.S. government has sent migrants to two-dozen third countries. The analysis focused primarily on five nations — El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Eswatini, and Palau — with which the Trump administration has entered into direct financial payments totaling $32 million, a committee member involved in the report said. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the analysis ahead of its release.

Under those agreements, U.S. authorities sent about 250 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last spring, while 29 migrants have been deported to Equatorial Guinea, 15 to Eswatini, and seven to Rwanda, the report said. None has been sent to Palau.

The report also estimated that the administration has spent more than $7 million in costs related to deportation flights to 10 of the third countries.

“Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent without meaningful oversight or accountability,” Shaheen wrote in her letter. “And speed and deterrence are being prioritized over due process and respect for human rights.”

Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said the report shows the “unprecedented” work the administration has undertaken in its first year to enforce immigration laws.

“Astonishingly, some in Congress still want to go back to a time just 14 months ago when cartels had free rein to poison Americans and our border was open,” Pigott said in a statement. “Make no mistake, President Trump has brought Biden’s era of mass illegal immigration to an end, and we are all safer for it.”

The third-country strategy has provoked public blowback and legal challenges that have slowed the administration’s efforts and, in some instances, forced it to change course.

Last spring, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used law targeting enemy combatants, which provided the administration’s legal rationale to send the Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. Administration officials accused many of being members of the Tren de Aragua transnational gang, though some of their families and attorneys disputed that contention.

The men were later transferred from El Salvador to Venezuela under a prisoner swap. On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the administration must bring some of the Venezuelan deportees back to the United States as they pursue legal challenges to their removals.

“It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the Government simply afforded Plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them,” Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg wrote in his ruling.

The analysis from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority was put together over a period of more than eight months, based on conversations with foreign government and U.S. government officials, attorneys for deportees and immigrant rights organizations, according to the committee staffer.

The staffer said the goal of the report is to highlight the costs of the administration’s approach at a time when Democrats are concerned that the U.S. government is “entering a new phase” of speeding up the number of third-country agreements, along with the pace of deportations.

The report faults the administration for pursuing its deportation policies at the expense of other U.S. interests, including promoting human rights and punishing corrupt foreign regimes.

The authors said the Trump administration’s payment of $7.5 million to Equatorial Guinea to accept immigrants was more than the amount of foreign assistance the United States provided to that country in the previous eight years. They cited a 2025 State Department report on human trafficking that cited U.S. concerns about “corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes” in that country.

The report also said the Trump administration was moving hastily to carry out third-country removals without trying to negotiate with the home countries of some deportees. In one case, a man initially deported to Eswatini was later sent to his home nation of Jamaica, where government officials said they had never told the United States that they were unwilling to accept him.

“As a result, the Trump Administration has, in some cases, paid twice for migrants’ travel — once to remove them to a third country and then again to fly them to their home country,” the report says.

February 13, 2026
A Homeland Security shutdown seems certain as funding talks between White House and Democrats stall

WASHINGTON — A shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security appeared certain Thursday as lawmakers in the House and Senate were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break and negotiations with the White House over Democrats’ demands for new restrictions had stalled.

Democrats and the White House have traded offers in recent days as the Democrats have said they want curbs on President Donald Trump’s broad campaign of immigration enforcement. They have demanded better identification for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement officers, a new code of conduct for those agencies and more use of judicial warrants, among other requests.

The White House sent its latest proposal late Wednesday, but Trump told reporters on Thursday that some of the Democratic demands would be “very, very hard to approve.”

Homeland Security officials voice concerns about looming shutdown

Democrats said the White House offer, which was not made public, did not include sufficient curbs on ICE after two protesters were fatally shot last month. The offer was “not serious,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday, after the Senate rejected a bill to fund the department.

Americans want accountability and “an end to the chaos,” Schumer said. “The White House and congressional Republicans must listen and deliver.”

Lawmakers in both chambers were on notice to return to Washington if the two sides struck a deal to end the expected shutdown. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters that Democrats would send the White House a counterproposal over the weekend.

Impact of a shutdown

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said after the vote that a shutdown appeared likely and “the people who are not going to be getting paychecks” will pay the price.

The impact of a DHS shutdown is likely to be minimal at first. It would not likely block any of the immigration enforcement operations, as Trump’s tax and spending cut bill passed last year gave ICE about $75 billion to expand detention capacity and bolster enforcement operations.

But the other agencies in the department — including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard — could take a bigger hit over time.

Gregg Phillips, an associate administrator at FEMA, said at a hearing this week that its disaster relief fund has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities during a shutdown, but would become seriously strained in the event of a catastrophic disaster.

Phillips said that while the agency continues to respond to threats like flooding and winter storms, long-term planning and coordination with state and local partners will be “irrevocably impacted.”

Trump defends officer masking

Trump, who has remained largely silent during the bipartisan talks, noted Thursday that a recent court ruling rejected a ban on masks for federal law enforcement officers.

“We have to protect our law enforcement,” Trump told reporters.

Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7.

Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended Homeland Security funding at current levels only through Friday.

Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras.

Unmasking ICE in Philly could test the limits of local power over federal agents

Democrats also say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests and require that before a person can be detained, authorities have verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen.

Thune suggested there were potential areas of compromise, including on masks. There could be contingencies “that these folks aren’t being doxed,” Thune said. “I think they could find a landing place.”

But Republicans have been largely opposed to most of the items on the Democrats’ list, including a prohibition on masks.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said Republicans who have pushed for stronger immigration enforcement would benefit politically from the Democratic demands.

“So if they want to have that debate, we’ll have that debate all they want,” said Schmitt.

Judicial warrants a sticking point

Thune, who has urged Democrats and the White House to work together, indicated that another sticking point is judicial warrants.

“The issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” Thune said of the White House’s most recent offer. “But I think there are a lot of other areas where there has been give, and progress.”

Schumer and Jeffries have said DHS officers should not be able to enter private property without a judicial warrant and that warrant procedures and standards should be improved. They have said they want an end to “roving patrols” of agents who are targeting people in the streets and in their homes.

Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants. Those are internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific person but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent. Traditionally, only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.

But an internal ICE memo obtained by The Associated Press last month authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections.

Far from agreement

Thune, R-S.D., said were “concessions” in the White House offer. He would not say what those concessions were, though, and he acknowledged the sides were “a long ways toward a solution.”

Schumer said it was not enough that the administration had announced an end to the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to thousands of arrests and the fatal shootings of two protesters.

“We need legislation to rein in ICE and end the violence,” Schumer said, or the actions of the administration “could be reversed tomorrow on a whim.”

Simmering partisan tensions played out on the Senate floor immediately after the vote, as Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Homeland Security funding, tried to pass a two-week extension of Homeland Security funding and Democrats objected.

Britt said Democrats were “posturing” and that federal employees would suffer for it. “I’m over it!” she yelled.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland spending subcommittee, responded that Democrats “want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but only a department that is obeying the law.”

“This is an exceptional moment in this country’s history,” Murphy said.

February 13, 2026
Inflation measure falls to nearly five-year low, but consumer prices are still about 25% higher

WASHINGTON — A key measure of inflation fell to nearly a five-year low last month as apartment rental price growth slowed and gas prices fell, offering some relief to Americans grappling with the sharp cost increases of the past five years.

Inflation dropped to 2.4% in January compared with a year earlier, down from 2.7% in December and not too far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose just 2.5% in January from a year ago, down from 2.6% the previous month and the smallest increase since March 2021.

Friday’s report suggests inflation is cooling, but the cost of food, gas, and apartment rents have soared after the pandemic, with consumer prices still about 25% higher than they were five years ago. The increase in such a broad range of costs has kept “affordability,” a topic that helped shape the most recent U.S. presidential election, front and center as a dominant political issue.

And on a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.2% in January from December, while core prices rose 0.3%. Core inflation was held down by a sharp drop in the price of used cars, which fell 1.8% just in January from December.

“Inflation continues to decelerate and is not threatening to move back up, and that will enable more rate cuts by the Fed,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust.

There were signs in the report that retailers are passing on more of the costs of President Donald Trump’s tariffs to consumers for goods such as furniture, appliances, and clothes. But those increases were offset by falling prices elsewhere. In other areas, Trump has delayed, scrapped, or provided exemptions to his duties.

Furniture prices jumped 0.7% in January from the previous month and are up 4% from a year ago. Appliances rose 1.3% in January though are only slightly more expensive than a year earlier. Clothing price rose 0.3% in January from December and have increased 1.7% in the past year.

Some services prices also rose: Airline fares soared 6.5% just in January, after a 3.8% jump in November, though they rose only 2.2% from a year earlier. Music streaming subscriptions increased 4.5% in January and are 7.8% higher than a year ago.

Yet those increases were largely offset by price declines, or much slower price growth, in other areas, including many that make up a greater share of Americans’ spending.

The cost of used cars, for example, plunged 1.8% in January, the biggest decline in two years. Gas prices fell 3.2% last month, the third drop in the past four months, and are down 7.5% from a year earlier. Grocery prices rose just 0.2% in January, after a big 0.6% rise in December, and are up 2.1% from a year ago. Hotel prices ticked down 0.1% in January and have fallen 2% from last year.

Rental prices and the cost of owning a home, which make up a third of the inflation index, both rose just 0.2% in December, while rents increased only 2.8% from a year earlier. That is much lower than during the pandemic: Rents rose by more than 8% in 2022.

The tariffs have increased some costs and many economists forecast companies will pass through more of those increases to consumers in the coming months. A study released Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that U.S. companies and consumers are paying nearly 90% of the tariffs’ costs, echoing similar findings in studies by Harvard and other economists.

Yet the increases haven’t been as broad-based as many economists feared.

Tilley said that the higher tariffs have pulled some consumer spending away from other services, which has forced companies to keep those prices a bit lower as a result.

“We don’t think consumers are in a place to take on price increases across the board, so you’re not seeing those price increses,” he said. Hiring was particularly weak last year, slowing wage growth, and many Americans remain gloomy about the economy.

Some economists note that the rental figures were distorted by October’s six-week government shutdown, which interrupted the Labor Department’s gathering of the data. The government plugged in estimated figures for October which economists say have artificially lowered some of the housing costs.

Companies are still grappling with the higher costs from Trump’s duties, though some have benefited from tariffs being delayed or scrapped.

Arin Schultz, chief growth officer at Naturepedic, which makes organic mattresses in Cleveland, breathed a sigh of relief when Trump postponed import duties on upholstered furniture until 2027. They would have substantially pushed up the cost of the headboards the company imports.

Schultz welcomed the decision to lower tariffs on imports from India to 18%, from 50%. Naturepedic sources a lot of the cotton fabrics and bedding that it sells from India. When that reduction kicks in, he said, the company could even cut some prices.

Still, Naturepedic’s costs jumped because of duties on imports from Vietnam and Malaysia, where it sources its organic latex, which can’t be grown in the United States. Naturepedic makes its mattresses in the United States at a factory in Cleveland and employs about 200 workers.

“We’re paying more now for that,” he said, and the company raised its prices about 7% last year as a result. “Tariffs are awful. We are less profitable now as a company because of tariffs.”

If inflation gets closer to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, it could allow the central bank to cut its key short-term interest rate further this year, as Trump has repeatedly demanded. High borrowing costs for things like mortgages and auto loans have also contributed to a perception that many big-ticket items remain out of reach for many Americans.

Inflation surged to 9.1% in 2022 as consumer spending soared as supply chains snarled after the pandemic. It began to fall in 2023 but leveled off around 3% in mid-2024 and remained elevated last year.

At the same time, measures of wage growth have declined as hiring has cratered. With companies reluctant to add jobs, workers don’t have as much leverage to demand raises.

February 13, 2026
Letters to the Editor | Feb. 13, 2026

Resilience is key

Is it fair that our attorney general is a Donald Trump sycophant who refuses to take action on the revelations of the Jeffrey Epstein files? No. But am I the first person in your life to tell you the world isn’t fair? The question is, what can we do about it?

I see a lot of anger and frustration that the powers that be aren’t doing enough in response to the Epstein files, especially compared to the resignations and firings going on in other parts of the world, and that’s right; they aren’t. But it is literally our job as citizens in a representative democracy to hold our elected representatives’ feet to the fire until they do what we want them to do. If Pam Bondi isn’t doing what she needs to do, and Congress isn’t doing what we’re telling them to do, then we must not be telling Congress what to do hard enough.

How will we know when we’re pushing hard enough? When we see these Epstein monsters in handcuffs doing the perp walk. Until then, keep up the pressure on Congress to issue their own subpoenas and conduct their own investigations of the multiple credible leads and tips in the file. Call. Write. Put a sign in your front yard. Talk to your friends and ask them to do those things.

The survivors deserve it. We deserve it. But we’re going to have to fight to get it.

Linda Falcao, Baltimore

. . .

Donald Trump’s chosen attorney general filibustered, dodged, and prevaricated her way during the disgracefully run and much-anticipated House Judiciary Committee hearing (chaired by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio) on Wednesday. I challenge anyone to recall any other attorney general who conducted themselves in such an ugly manner. Americans were subjected to an incompetent, irrelevant, and disingenuous performance by a sworn witness in Congress. Jordan did nothing (naturally) to rein in Bondi, who serially refused to answer direct questions but invoked her fealty to Donald Trump ad nauseam. Bondi was 100% political, hyper-emotional, and insulting to nearly every interrogator who was a Democrat. What I took away from Bondi’s performance was that she really doesn’t know much and was unprepared — and unwilling — to testify honestly. Bondi is a bush league lawyer — trying desperately to survive in Washington — who has turned her agency into the Department of Injustice.

David Kahn, Boca Raton, Fla.

National debt

It is hard to get a handle on the Trump administration’s America First agenda because the president is constantly deflecting concerns about any specific policy by bad-mouthing the previous administration or by suggesting new outrageous proposals to mask any real problems. At the beginning of his first year, he unleashed the Department of Government Efficiency to cut waste in the budget by eliminating thousands of jobs that Elon Musk considered unnecessary in order to help pare down government spending. Early on, the president also began to impose tariffs with the promise that these vehicles would provide America with unimaginable wealth. What happened? After one year in office, Donald Trump’s policies have increased the national debt by about $2 trillion. At this pace, he will have increased the national debt by at least $8 trillion at the end of his term. It seems his economic policies are not producing the desired results. Perhaps he and his Republican colleagues should rethink what is best for the average American. And the average American should rethink who is best serving his or her interests.

Anthony Munafo, Warminster

Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

February 13, 2026
Dear Abby | Angry wife continues to wait for husband’s apology

DEAR ABBY: I have been married 50 years and recently remembered that my husband cheated on me with several different women. He admitted to one affair but swears he saw her only twice and they had sex only once. He says I’m imagining the other two. He hasn’t apologized for the one he admitted to and refuses to discuss it or the other two, though I can see them in my mind’s eye and feel it in my gut.

At this point, I’m more angry about his lying than I am about something that happened decades ago. Am I wrong to want the truth so I can get angry, deal with it and then forgive him? I also want a heartfelt apology.

— HEARTSICK IN TEXAS

DEAR HEARTSICK: You do not need “the truth” so you can get angry. You are ALREADY as mad as heck. What you want is an apology from your cheating husband, and you aren’t going to get it. Discussing this with a licensed marriage and family therapist may help you dissipate some of your anger and move on.

** ** **

DEAR ABBY: Two of my mom’s best friends ended their friendship with her after almost 50 years because of political differences. I grew up spending every holiday with these ladies and their families, in addition to summer lake and winter ski vacations and everything in between.

One of them is my godmother, and they both were like second moms to me. Can it be that simple to act as if they were never friends in the first place? Must Mom just accept the change, or can she try to repair the friendships?

— SAD SON IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR SON: When political differences run so deep that close friendships are destroyed, I am sorry to say they are often not salvageable. I am not sure that time can heal the rift when someone is so entrenched in their political beliefs that they would jettison a 50-year friendship. Suggest to your mom that rather than look backward, she may try to cultivate friends who are less contentious.

** ** **

DEAR ABBY: I am a 75-year-old therapist who was virtually a single parent. I still struggle with the guilt that I didn’t do a good enough job with my three grown children, despite my trying with what energy and resources I continue to have. Their father has been pretty much absent since our divorce 35 years ago.

How can I get rid of the feeling that I am disrespected by my ungrateful adult children, and how do I stop trying to compensate them for their missing parent? There is minimal chance that they will change their attitude or beliefs at this point.

— STRUGGLING IN NEW JERSEY

DEAR STRUGGLING: Thank you for asking. By now you must have realized that you can’t buy love. As a psychotherapist, surely you are aware that therapists have therapists of their own (and many need this support). Because you are in pain over something you can’t change by yourself, recognize that it’s time to become proactive on your own behalf and consult one.

February 13, 2026
Horoscopes: Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

ARIES (March 21-April 19). You’re observant. You’ll notice when people are stressed, and there’s an opportunity there. Even if you can’t fix it, you can use it to steer things along. You’ll notice what people are attracted to, and that helps even more.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). It feels like you can’t be happy until the picture matches your vision. The best route to improvement starts with appreciating what’s already good. Building on that will be quick, painless and cheap — much more efficient than a tear-down renovation.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Cut to the chase. For the sake of time and clarity, communicate directly. You can play the politics, move with diplomacy and worry about people’s feelings another day. Today the action moves because you get right to it.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). Your connections will open doors, but not always through conversation. People feel you in the pauses. So let your calm, attentive presence do the work for you. Your listening skills will take you further than any verbal pitch ever could.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You’re not looking to add things to your schedule or please anyone with your compliance. You want to solve a problem, and that will mean engaging with deeper forces. You’ll discover useful answers that meet the realities in play.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You are exactly where you belong, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Go with it. No analysis necessary. Once you assume this is true, what else might be true? That you can trust the instincts that brought you here?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You don’t have to be an expert to teach. A 5-year-old has quite a lot to teach a 4-year-old. Whatever you’ve acquired, you’re generous with it, and this will come back to you in the future.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). For the famous, distant and historic characters, we interact only with the ideals of a curated image. There are no missed calls, sharp remarks, bad days or conflicting needs to complicate the narrative. Dealing with real people in real time will require some grace.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Without a target, any shot that lands could be considered a bull’s-eye — or a miss, for that matter. The goal is what makes this a game. So the question is: Do you feel sporting? Or is this better approached as an open exploration?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). You have a natural lightness and wit, and people usually enjoy your humor. Still, there’s a fine line between playful and cutting. Tone and context matter more than usual today because sensitivities are dialed up. Favor kindness over cleverness.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). There’s an ample portion of life that can’t be bent to human will, but to some extent, today offers you moments of feeling like the controller of the universe, and in those moments you really are. Enjoy!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). There is something better for you, and because you’re willing to ask for it, search for it, or if need be invent it yourself, you’ve a very good chance of making it happen — if not today, then soon.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Feb. 13). Welcome to your Year of the Golden Touch, when everything you nurture grows — ideas, projects, plants and people. Your devoted efforts to really learn the nature of things combined with your intuitive care produces thriving beauty. More highlights: You’ll celebrate a joyful milestone on a decade’s long endeavor. You’ll add to your legacy in an unusual way. Relationships across generations and backgrounds make you richer — and so does a cash windfall. Pisces and Leo adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 30, 9, 18, 37 and 28.

February 13, 2026
Tankers beware: Jazz fined $500,000, Pacers $100,000 by NBA for player participation policy breach

Utah appeared to find a loophole in the NBA’s player participation policy, but the league sent a message Thursday by hitting the Jazz with a $500,000 fine.

The NBA also docked the Indiana Pacers $100,000 for holding out Pascal Siakam and two other starters in a Feb. 3 game against the Jazz.

The policy was put in place in September 2023 to try to discourage clubs from purposely losing in order to improve their chances with the draft lottery. This year’s draft is considered the strongest in several years, possibly incentivizing clubs like the Jazz to position themselves for a high pick.

The Jazz did not play stars Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter of recent close games. Both played three quarters in recent road games against Miami and Orlando. The Magic rallied from 17 points down to win 120-117, but the Jazz defeated the Heat 115-111.

Jazz coach Will Hardy was asked after the game at Miami whether he considered playing Markkanen and Jackson in the fourth quarter.

“I wasn’t,” Hardy said succinctly.

In fining the Jazz said, the NBA said in its release “these players were otherwise able to continue to play and the outcomes of the games were thereafter in doubt.”

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement the competition committee and team owners will work “to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”

“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” Silver said.

Silver likely will further address the topic when he meets with the media Saturday during All-Star weekend in Los Angeles.

“Agree to disagree …,” Jazz owner Ryan Smith posted on social media. “Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined? That makes sense …”

The NBA fined Utah $100,000 last season after the Jazz rested Markkanen in multiple games.

He and the recently-acquired Jackson are the building blocks for the Jazz to try to get back into contention. They traded with Memphis on Feb. 3 for the two-time All-Star and 2023 Defensive Player of the Year.

Jackson, however, will be out for the foreseeable future. He will undergo surgery over the NBA all-star break to remove a growth from his left knee, discovered by an MRI in a physical following the trade. Jackson averaged 22.3 points in 24 minutes per game after joining the Jazz.

Utah has prioritized player development with younger players on its roster at the expense of chasing wins. The front office is motivated to hold onto a first-round pick in this year’s draft that is top-eight protected. Falling outside the bottom eight in the standings means Utah would lose that pick to Oklahoma City.

A number of teams, including the Jazz, would seem to have a great interest in securing a high selection for this year’s draft.

One of those top prospects plays just south of Salt Lake. BYU’s AJ Dybantsa is considered a likely top-three and potentially franchise-changing pick along with Duke’s Cameron Boozer and Kansas’ Darryn Peterson.

But it’s also a deep draft where simply getting into the lottery could mean still getting a shot at a difference-making player.

The Jazz, 18-37 entering Thursday night’s game against Portland, will miss the postseason for the fourth year in a row. This comes after a six-year stretch in which the Jazz made the playoffs each season.

Under the direction of CEO Danny Ainge and his son and team president, Austin, the Jazz ultimately are trying to return to the glory days when they didn’t just make the playoffs. The John Stockton-Karl Malone teams in 1990s were regular championship contenders, making the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998.

February 13, 2026
Search for Nancy Guthrie now seeks nearby security videos from the month before she vanished

TUCSON, Ariz. — Investigators in Arizona want residents near Nancy Guthrie ‘s home to share surveillance camera footage of suspicious cars or people they may have noticed in the month before she disappeared.

The alert went across a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) radius in neighborhoods close to where the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie went missing 12 days ago, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.

It asked for video of “anything neighbors deem out of the ordinary or important to our investigation” since the beginning of January.

Federal and local officers have been going door-to-door in Tucson neighborhoods around 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie’s house while also looking for clues around her other daughter’s nearby home, which she had visited just hours before disappearing.

Investigators have recovered and are analyzing several pieces of evidence, including a pair of gloves, the sheriff’s department said.

Authorities on Thursday briefly put up a tent in front of Nancy Guthrie’s entryway where her blood was discovered in the early days of the investigation, and where a doorbell camera captured images of a masked person the night she went missing. The FBI released descriptors of that person Thursday, whom it now calls a suspect, in a post on X.

The post describes the suspect as a 5-foot-9-inch or 5-foot-10-inch male with an average build, and included photos from multiple angles of a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack, which the agency said is the brand and model the suspect was wearing.

“We hope this updated description will help concentrate the public tips we are receiving,” the FBI said, noting the thousands of tips it has gotten since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.

FBI Phoenix also announced it has hiked its reward to $100,000 for information on Guthrie’s disappearance.

Authorities have said Guthrie was taken against her will. She’s been missing since Feb. 1, and authorities say she takes several medications and there’s concern she could die without them.

While much of the nation remains engrossed by the mysterious disappearance, Savannah Guthrie on Thursday shared on Instagram a vintage home video of her mom with two children sharing pink flowers, writing “we will never give up on her. thank you for your prayers and hope.”

On Wednesday, FBI agents carrying water bottles to beat the desert heat walked among rocks and vegetation at Nancy Guthrie’s home. They also fanned out across a nearby neighborhood, knocking on doors and searching through cactuses, brush and boulders.

“They were just asking some general questions wondering if there was anything, any information we could shed on the Nancy Guthrie issue. Wanted to look around the property and after that, cameras and such,” Ann Adams, a neighbor of Nancy Guthrie’s oldest daughter, Annie Guthrie, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“They did ask specifically for the 31st of January and the morning of the first of February and then they wanted to know if we saw anything suspicious on cameras since then,” Adams said.

Several hundred detectives and agents are now assigned to the investigation, which is expanding in the area, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.

Two investigators emerged from daughter Annie Guthrie’s home Wednesday with a paper grocery sack and a white trash bag. One, still wearing blue protective gloves, also took a stack of mail from the roadside mailbox.

Adams, the neighbor, said she was out walking her dog earlier this week when, “it started to get really busy and then I heard about them searching, looked down the street, I saw them slowly moving this way.”

Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings have indicated a willingness to pay a ransom. But it’s not known whether ransom notes demanding money with deadlines that have already passed were authentic.

February 13, 2026
Palestinian protester, detained for nearly a year, says ‘inhumane’ jail conditions prompted seizure

A Palestinian woman who has been held in an immigration jail for nearly a year after she attended a protest in New York City said she suffered a seizure after fainting and hitting her head last week, an episode she linked to “filthy” and “inhumane” conditions inside the privately run detention facility.

Leqaa Kordia, 33, was hospitalized for three days following the seizure, which she said was the first of her life. She has since returned to the Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas, where she has been held since March.

In a statement released through her lawyers on Thursday, Kordia said she was shackled the entire time she was hospitalized and prevented from calling family or meeting with her lawyers.

“For three days in the emergency room, my hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications,” Kordia said. “I felt like an animal. My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal.”

Her doctors, she said, told her the seizure may have been the result of poor sleep, inadequate nutrition and stress. Her lawyers previously warned that Kordia, a devout Muslim, had lost 49 pounds and fainted in the shower, in part because the jail had denied her meals that comply with religious requirements.

“I’ve been here for 11 months, and the food is so bad it makes me sick,” the statement continued. “At Prairieland, your daily life — whether you can have access to the food or medicine you need or even a good night’s sleep — is controlled by the private, for-profit business that runs this facility.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but said in a statement to The New York Times that Kordia wasn’t being mistreated and was receiving proper medical care.

A resident of New Jersey who grew up in the West Bank, Kordia was among about 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024.

The charges against her were dismissed and sealed. But information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City police department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.

Last year, Kordia was among the first pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens who had criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza. She is the only one who remains jailed.

She has not been accused of a crime and has twice been ordered released on bond by an immigration judge. The government has challenged both rulings, an unusual step in cases that don’t involve serious crimes, which triggers a lengthy appeals process.

Kordia was taken into custody during a March 13 check-in with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. At the time, federal officials touted her arrest as part of the sweeping crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, pointing to her 2024 arrest outside of Columbia as proof of “pro-Hamas” activities.

Kordia said she joined the demonstration after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. “My way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets,” she told The Associated Press in October.

Federal officials have accused Kordia of overstaying her visa, while casting scrutiny on payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East. Kordia said the money was meant to help family members whose homes were destroyed in the war or were otherwise suffering.

An immigration judge later found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments. Attorneys for Kordia say she was previously in the U.S. on a student visa, but mistakenly surrendered that status after applying to remain in the country as the relative of a U.S. citizen.

In her statement on Thursday, Kordia said the detention facility was “built to break people and destroy their health and hope.”

“The best medicine for me and everyone else here is our freedom,” she added.

February 13, 2026
RFK Jr. promised to restore trust in U.S. health agencies. One year later, it’s eroding

NEW YORK — Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services one year ago, he has defended his upending of federal health policy by saying the changes will restore trust in America’s public health agencies.

But as the longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement scales back immunization guidance and dismisses scientists and advisers, he’s clashed with top medical groups who say he’s not following the science.

The confrontation is deepening confusion among the public that had already surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveys show trust in the agencies Kennedy leads is falling, rather than rising, as the country’s health landscape undergoes dramatic change.

Kennedy says he’s aiming to boost transparency to empower Americans to make their own health choices. Doctors counter that the false and unverified information he’s promoting is causing major, perhaps irreversible, damage — and that if enough people forgo vaccination, it will cause a surge of illness and death.

There was a time when people trusted health agencies regardless of party and the government reported “the best of what science knows at this point,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Now, you cannot confidently go to federal websites and know that,” she said.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon argued that trust had suffered during the Biden administration. “Kennedy’s mandate is to restore transparency, scientific rigor, and accountability,” he said.

Trust slid during the COVID pandemic

Historically, federal scientific and public health agencies enjoyed strong ratings in public opinion polls. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for decades scored above many other government agencies in Gallup surveys that asked whether they were doing a “good” or “excellent” job.

Two decades ago, more than 60% of Americans gave the CDC high marks, according to Gallup. But that number fell dramatically at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, amid agency mistakes and guidance that some people didn’t like.

In 2020, the percentage of Americans who believed the CDC was doing at least a “good” job fell to 40% and then leveled off for the next few years.

Alix Ellis, a hairstylist and mom in Madison, Georgia, used to fully trust the CDC and other health agencies but lost that confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said some of the guidance didn’t make sense. At her salon, for example, stylists could work directly on someone’s hair, but others in the room had to be several feet away.

“I’m not saying that we were lied to, but that is when I was like, OK, ‘Why are we doing this?’” the 35-year-old said.

Kennedy helped create the trust problem, doctor says

Part of Kennedy’s pitch as health secretary has been restoring Americans’ trust in public health.

“We’re going to tell them what we know, we’re going to tell them what we don’t know, and we’re going to tell them what we’re researching and how we’re doing it,” Kennedy told senators last September, while explaining how he intended to make the CDC’s information reliable. “It’s the only way to restore trust in the agency — by making it trustworthy.”

Before entering politics, Kennedy was one of the loudest voices spreading false information about immunizations. Now, he’s trying to fix a trust problem he helped create, said Dr. Rob Davidson, a Michigan emergency physician.

“You fed those people false information to create the distrust, and now you’re sweeping into power and you’re going to cure the distrust by promoting the same disinformation,” said Davidson, who runs a doctor group called the Committee to Protect Health Care. “It’s upside-down.”

Kennedy has wielded the power of his office to take multiple steps that diverge from medical consensus.

Last May, he announced COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move doctors called concerning and confusing.

In November, he directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying new evidence. And earlier this year, the CDC under his leadership reduced the number of vaccines recommended for every child, a decision medical groups said would undermine protections against a half-dozen diseases.

Kennedy also has overhauled his department through canceled grants and mass layoffs. Last summer, Kennedy fired his new CDC chief after less than a month over disagreements about vaccine policy.

Confusion emerges as trust erodes

Some have applauded the moves. But surveys suggest many Americans have had the opposite reaction.

“I have much less trust,” said Mark Rasmussen, a 67-year-old retiree walking into a mall in Danbury, Connecticut, one recent morning.

Shocked by Kennedy’s dismantling of public health norms, professional medical groups have urged Americans not to follow new vaccine recommendations they say were adopted without public input or compelling evidence.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with more than 200 public health and advocacy groups, urged Congress to investigate how and why Kennedy changed the vaccine schedule. The American Medical Association, working with the University of Minnesota’s Vaccine Integrity Project, this week announced a new evidence-based process for reviewing the safety of respiratory virus vaccines — something they say is needed since the government stopped doing that kind of systematic review.

Many Democratic-led states also have rebuffed Kennedy’s policies, even creating their own alliances to counter his vaccine guidance.

“We see burgeoning confusion about which sources to trust and about which sources are real. That makes decision-making on an individual level much harder,” said Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

She said she worried the confusion was contributing to the recent rise in diseases like whooping cough and measles, which were once largely eliminated in the U.S.

Surveys indicate growing public wavering over support for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Although a large majority of people support giving it to children, the proportion declined significantly in just over nine months, according to Annenberg research. An August 2025 survey finds that 82% would be “very” or “somewhat” likely to recommend that an eligible child in their household get MMR vaccine, compared with 90% in November 2024.

Surveys show trust is declining again

New findings from the healthcare research nonprofit KFF in January show that 47% of Americans trust the CDC “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to provide reliable vaccine information, down about 10 percentage points since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Trust among Democrats dropped 9 percentage points since September, to 55%, the survey found. Trust among Republicans and independents hasn’t changed since September, but it has declined somewhat among both groups since the beginning of Trump’s term.

Even among MAHA supporters, the poll shows, fewer than half say they trust agencies like the CDC and FDA “a lot” or “some” to make recommendations about childhood vaccine schedules.

Gallup surveys also show a drop in Americans who believe the CDC is doing a “good job,” from 40% in 2024 to 31% last year.

Those results came alongside a decline of trust across the government — not just agencies under Kennedy’s oversight. Yet concerns about Kennedy’s trustworthiness also have emerged in the past year. Documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian, for example, undermine his statements that a 2019 trip to Samoa ahead of a measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines.” The documents have prompted senators to assert that Kennedy lied to them over the visit.

HHS officials say they are promoting independent decision-making by families while working to reduce preventable diseases. They say reducing routine vaccine recommendations was meant to ensure parents vaccinate children against the riskiest diseases.

HHS did not make Kennedy available for an interview, despite repeated requests. But as he has pledged to restore trust, he’s also urged people to come to their own conclusions.

“This idea that you should trust the experts,” Kennedy said recently on The Katie Miller Podcast, “a good mother doesn’t do that.”

February 12, 2026