作者： root

Backlash over fund tests Blanche’s bid for US attorney general

2026-05-29T10:03:57.847Z / Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – Todd Blanche has moved quickly as acting U.S. attorney general to please the man whose face now adorns the exterior of the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters: President Donald Trump.

The Department of Justice under Blanche, who took over in early April ​after Trump fired his predecessor, Pam Bondi, secured criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey, ramped up its investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan and removed press releases ‌about prosecutions of rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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But his audition for the permanent job as the nation’s top law enforcement official faces its biggest hurdle next week when Congress returns: the $1.776 billion fund for victims of what Trump has called government “weaponization,” including possibly the January 6 rioters.

The “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” set up under a settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records, was widely derided by critics as ​a “slush fund” for Trump’s political allies.

Senators recoiled from the fund when it was rolled out last week and canceled a planned vote on funding immigration enforcement in protest. Some Republican lawmakers have discussed ​placing guardrails on the fund or eliminating it entirely.

‘SCREAMING AT THE ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL’

Blanche was summoned to a tense meeting with Senate Republicans, many of ⁠whom expressed fury about the political optics of the fund and the prospect that people convicted of violent crimes could receive taxpayer-funded payouts.

“The Republican senators were pissed,” Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, ​said on his podcast. “The entire meeting, they were screaming at the acting attorney general.”

Trump has backed the plan, writing in a social media post that he is helping those “abused” by Democratic President Joe Biden’s ​administration.

Blanche has defended the fund, saying there are no partisan requirements to file a claim. A five-person commission, four of whom Blanche will appoint directly, would oversee compensation for those claiming to be victims of “lawfare” or “weaponization,” terms Trump and his allies have long used to condemn cases against them.

The pushback from Senate Republicans, whose support he would need for confirmation, shows the risks of Blanche’s Trump-centered approach. Courts have also voiced distrust of the DOJ in several cases.

“There’s just a ​fundamental incompatibility between his (Trump’s) demand that the Justice Department carry out loyally all of his retributive goals, and his desire to see those things succeed in courts and before grand juries,” said Peter Keisler, ​a former DOJ official who served as acting attorney general under Republican President George W. Bush.

A department spokesperson said Blanche has “strong, productive relationships with both Congress and the courts as the laws of our nation are enforced.”

“Any ‌notion that Acting ⁠AG Blanche lacks support from these institutions is simply false,” the spokesperson said.

DEFENDING TRUMP

A day after the confrontation with Republican lawmakers, Blanche was rebuked by a federal judge.

Tennessee-based U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding the prosecution was improperly brought in retaliation for his legal challenge to his wrongful deportation to El Salvador last year.

In his ruling, the judge cited Blanche’s remarks in a June 2025 Fox News interview when Blanche, then the deputy attorney general, said the government began investigating Abrego after another federal judge questioned his deportation.

Crenshaw, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, ​said Blanche’s statements tied DOJ leadership “to the tainted investigation ​and confirm what motivated it.”

The Justice Department ⁠has vowed to appeal the ruling, calling it “wrong and dangerous.” In court filings, prosecutors have denied any political motivation.

Blanche worked his way from a paralegal to a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, a magnet for top-flight federal prosecutors. He left his position at a prominent New York law firm ​in 2023 to represent Trump, who at the time struggled to find lawyers to defend him against a crush of state and federal investigations.

“He’s ​lived this lawfare for years. ⁠He understands the viciousness of it. He understands the dangers of it,” said Mike Davis, a Trump ally and the head of the Article III Project, a conservative legal advocacy group, who called Blanche the “man for the moment.”

Blanche built a rapport with Trump, adopting his pugilistic style in defending against three of the four criminal cases Trump faced in his years out of office. He was installed as second-in-command at the Justice Department ⁠after Trump won ​the 2024 election.

Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a legal ethics expert, said Blanche’s past role ​as Trump’s lawyer may put him “in a different mindset” than others who have run the DOJ.

“You have really one person that you’re looking out for and you grow to think of them and their goals as the be all and end all ​of your professional life,” Roiphe said. “Then when you assume a position where you’re supposed to be representing the public, you might have an altered view.”

Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Sanjeev Miglani

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

涉纵火烧学校致16人死亡 肯尼亚八名学生被捕

2026年5月29日 18:07 / 联合早报

肯尼亚首都内罗毕以北吉尔吉尔的乌图米什女子学院5月28日发生致命火灾后，肯尼亚红十字会工作人员移走遗体。 （法新社）

非洲东部国家肯尼亚警方逮捕八名涉嫌纵火烧学校的学生。纵火案发生在一所女子寄宿学校，造成16名学生死亡。

路透社引述肯尼亚刑事调查局星期五（5月29日）发布的声明说：“初步调查已确定八名学生与这起疑似纵火案的策划和实施有关，这八名女生已被逮捕，目前受警方拘留。”

位于肯尼亚中西部吉尔吉尔（Gilgil）的乌图米什女子学院（Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School）星期四（28日）凌晨发生的火灾，也造成79名学生受伤。

据政府统计，肯尼亚学校火灾频发，2024年已记录在案的火灾达百多起。

研究人员发现，许多火灾是由学生抗议严苛的纪律和恶劣的学习条件引发的。

2024年，附近内里郡（Nyeri County）一所寄宿制小学发生火灾，造成21名学生死亡。那场火灾的原因尚未最终确定。

Democrats ‘selling their soul’ to embrace Platner are in for rude awakening with Maine voters: GOP lawmaker

May 29, 2026 7:31am EDT / Fox News

Maine GOP State Sen. Stewart says Platner’s deleted posts and refusal to apologize disqualify him from the U.S. Senate

By Andrew Mark Miller , Kiera McDonald, Fox News

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Maine Republican state Sen. Trey Stewart is warning that Democrats are “selling their soul” by defending controversial Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and that the Democratic Party is moving to a “dangerous place” if he wins a Senate seat in November.

“The voters care a lot,” Stewart told Fox News Digital about the mounting criticisms of Platner, including deleted social posts where he described himself as a “communist” and “socialist,” used alleged homophobic slurs, and disparaged the military.

“I think that he’s a flash in the pan for right now amongst extreme liberal Democrats who can’t see past defeating Susan Collins at any cost, and what they’re really doing is selling their soul to somebody who has a tattoo that’s affiliated with the Nazis on his chest,has made slanderous remarks, really pretty ugly and horrifying remarks about veterans who have been injured in combat, racist and bigoted statements that were misogynist, so literally everything that you hear the left trying to villainize the right about, he’s actually guilty of and there’s a track record of this.”

Stewart said he is confident five-term incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins will remain “victorious” in “middle-of-the-road” Maine, despite Platner leading in the polls, saying that the Platner campaign is “not going to work” because “Maine people don’t subscribe to that line of thinking that Mr. Platner does.”

SUSAN COLLINS SHRUGS OFF ATTACKS BY DEMOCRATS AND TRUMP, SAYS MAINE VOTERS ‘DON’T VOTE PARTY LINE’

Maine Republican State Sen. Trey Stewart said Democrats supporting Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner will face a rude awakening with voters.(Fox News Digital ; Sophie Park/Getty Images)

“Susan Collins, who is one of, if not the most influential votes in the United States Senate, and certainly an incredible influence financially and otherwise for the state of Maine, is going to be victorious,” he said. “That’s because Maine, at the end of the day, is a middle-of-the-road state.”

This isn’t the first time Collins has seen a progressive challenger surge in the polls. In 2020, Collins consistently trailed former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, sometimes by double digits in the polls, before ultimately winning re-election in one of the most expensive races in state history.

Stewart says that Maine voters typically reject both far-right and far-left candidates and that Platner’s “extreme position is not going to be something that voters reward here in November.”

Overall, Stewart said Democrats’ “embarrassing” decision to stand behind Platner reflects where the party stands today as a whole and exposes a “soul-searching” problem within the party.

TOP OFF-THE-WALL REDDIT POSTS HAUNTING GRAHAM PLATNER’S MAINE SENATE BID

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, holds a blanket as she walks off the Senate floor after the chamber stayed in session throughout the night at the U.S. Capitol Building on July 1, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“I find it highly embarrassing that this is where the Democrat party is, not just in the state of Maine, but across the country at this point, with the most extreme sort of tail-wagging-the-dog effect,” he said. “Maybe that is the direction that the Democrat party in Maine and in our country is going,” he said. “If it is, then ultimately that’s going to be a very dangerous place for them and a very dangerous place for our country.”

Platner, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has faced a wave of scrutiny over his deleted Reddit posts and has been heavily criticized by Republicans who say he has not adequately explained or apologized for them.

DEMOCRAT BLASTED BY LEFT AND RIGHT AFTER SOFTENING STANCE ON SCANDAL-HIT MAINE CANDIDATE

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner has campaigned on progressive economic policies focused on taxing billionaires and lowering costs for working-class Americans.(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In a post from June 2019, Platner mocked a video of Purple Heart veteran Teddy Daniels being shot four times during a 2012 clash with Taliban fighters, saying Daniels “didn’t deserve to live.”

“Platner declined to apologize or acknowledge regret over the comment in a video taken by Fox News Digital over the weekend.

“This is not the right course of action that he should be taking,” Stewart said. “If anything, he owes a number of apologies to the people who he has said highly offensive things to. But beyond that, certainly United States Senate is something that is completely out of grasp for an individual like this.”

He really just needs help,” Stewart said. “He doesn’t need a seat in the United States Senate.”

[image_6]

Fox News Digital reached out to the Platner campaign for comment.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Following Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ announcement to end her campaign for Senate last month, Platner became the Democrats’ presumptive nominee in the June 9 primary to decide who will face Collins in November.

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6396766510112

Mullin plan to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by targeting their airports faces fierce headwinds

2026-05-29T09:00:08.226Z / CNN

• DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wants to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by cutting customs staffing at their airports.
• The plan faces opposition from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the travel industry over disruption concerns.
• Two Trump officials say the proposal is not being seriously considered by the administration.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has become preoccupied with an idea to punish cities and states that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement — cutting customs staffing at their airports and possibly stopping the processing of international travelers all together.

But the ambitious plan is hitting turbulence: It has sent the travel industry and local officials reeling because of its disruptive potential, has been publicly opposed by a fellow Cabinet secretary, and has not yet been greenlit by the White House.

If “radical left Democrats” aren’t allowing federal authorities to enforce immigration laws in their communities, Mullin told Fox News earlier this week, “then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either.”

“They don’t want us to enforce immigration but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me,” the secretary said.

Airlines, for their part, have not commented on the plan or how close they believe it is to being implemented. If enacted, it would have huge implications for trade and tourism within the US, even if the administration decided to wait until after the upcoming World Cup matches. Cascading disruptions could affect large and small American airports in red states and blue states.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized Mullin’s plan during a recent congressional hearing: “We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” he said last week.

And while Mullin keeps mentioning the idea in media interviews, there are not imminent plans for such a move, two Trump officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

The push is seen internally as more of a personal desire of Mullin’s than one coming from inside the West Wing. One of the officials said Mullin has been “obsessed” with the idea since being sworn in as Homeland Security secretary in March to replace his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem, bringing it up unprompted during meetings at the White House.

“The President loves having a team that is constantly coming up with new ideas but ultimately any policy decisions will be up to him,” a White House official said.

While Mullin has been widely viewed as a stabilizing force atop DHS after a chaotic year under Noem’s control, and has built up a lot of goodwill with the president, his airport plan could have significant and wide-ranging consequences.

Some Trump officials have privately acknowledged the havoc the plan could wreak on international travel, and the industry has made the same point publicly.

“Reducing [Customs and Border Protection] staffing at major airports would have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries, causing a significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo,” Airlines for America, a trade association that lobbies for several major American carriers, said in a statement.

The US Travel Association, a national organization that advocates for all aspects of the country’s travel industry, said its representatives recently met with Mullin. The secretary “confirmed his previous comments that the administration is considering a withdrawal” of customs agents at some major international airports, the association said in a statement.

“U.S. Travel believes such a move would have devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international visitation,” the statement said.

While Mullin has pitched the idea as a means of punishing sanctuary jurisdictions, it could have much more wide-ranging impacts if put into practice. Just because international travelers arrive to the US via airports like JFK or SFO, that doesn’t mean that New York City or San Francisco are their final destinations.

Airline routes are set far in advance, and simply changing those routes to land in a non-sanctuary jurisdiction would not be an easy task given that many busy airports lack extra capacity.

There is no one definition for a “sanctuary city.” The term is generally understood to mean jurisdictions that set policy or law limiting local cooperation with the federal government in the enforcement of immigration law. The Department of Justice published a list last year of what it considers to be sanctuary jurisdictions.

That list seems to have expanded since the beginning of the year. Mullin has frequently criticized Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who earlier this month signed an executive order limiting state officials’ cooperation with federal immigration officers. Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, two of the three primary airports serving Washington, DC, are located in Virginia.

Also on the DOJ list are New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said his state “will respond” if the federal government acts in a “a reckless, chaotic, cruel way.”

Death toll from U.S. boat strikes on alleged drug boats climbs after recent survivors not found

Updated on: May 29, 2026 / 6:59 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The death toll from the Trump administration’s monthslong series of strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean has risen to at least 199 people after survivors of recent attacks were not found.

The total includes at least 22 people who had survived an initial strike only to be hit again or die at sea during the campaign that began last September. That includes three people who survived two separate strikes this month, according to the U.S. military, including two people who survived a strike this week in the eastern Pacific.

U.S. Southern Command says it notifies the U.S. Coast Guard of any survivors of such attacks, but those reports largely appear to be passed on to countries closer to the actual strike location.

When asked about any recent search and rescue efforts, Mexico’s navy said it had received an alert from the U.S. Coast Guard about the strikes this month but it did not mention survivors. The U.S. Coast Guard referred requests for more information to Mexico’s authorities.

The strikes have been contentious, with the Trump administration declaring that the U.S. is at war with Latin American drug cartels.

The first attack in the campaign occurred on Sept. 2. In early December, however, the Trump administration came under heavy scrutiny after it confirmed a Washington Post report that in that Sept. 2 attack, the U.S. had conducted a follow-on strike, or “double tap,” that killed two survivors of the initial strike on the vessel.

Some lawmakers questioned whether the follow-on strike constituted a war crime.

The Pentagon’s watchdog said this month that it plans to look into whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out its strikes. However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what’s known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not the legality of the strikes, the inspector general’s office said.

To date, only three people are known to have survived strikes and then been rescued. Two were rescued from a “narco sub” accused of carrying drugs in October and later returned to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.

In March, the U.S. Coast Guard said it recovered a survivor of a strike that killed two others and transferred the survivor to Costa Rican authorities.

Earlier this year, the families of two Trinidadian men who were killed in a U.S. missile strike on a boat in the Caribbean sued the Trump administration in federal court, arguing the “premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification.”

In December, the relatives of 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza Medina filed a complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, saying Medina was not involved in drug trafficking and had been fishing when his boat was destroyed.

美军印太司令提交涉台报告 拟增强对华威慑

2026年5月29日 18:28 / 联合早报

美军印太司令部司令帕帕罗4月提交给美国国会的报告，在对华措辞上比特朗普政府更为强硬，并详细阐述打算如何在亚洲规划特朗普政府大幅增长的国防预算资金。 （路透社档案照片）

（华盛顿彭博电）美国印太司令部司令帕帕罗在提交给国会的报告中说，美军正悄然寻求增强在台湾问题上遏制或对抗中国大陆的能力，包括配备新型反舰导弹和先进水雷。

根据彭博社获得的这份121页文件，帕帕罗称中国人民解放军“正在所有领域进行历史性的扩张，并为两大主要任务做训练，一是强行实现台湾统一，二是对抗美国及其盟友的防御能力；北京的军事准备目标定在2027年”。

报道指出，帕帕罗的报告在对华措辞上比特朗普政府更为强硬，并且重新预测中国解放军武力攻台的可能时间为2027年，即解放军建军100周年。美国今年早些时候的一份情报评估，已不再采纳这一预期。

这份报告日期为4月6日，详细阐述美国军方对特朗普政府创纪录国防预算资金在亚洲的部署计划。帕帕罗敦促国会批准这笔高达1.5万亿美元（约1.9万亿新元）的额外支出，从而“捍卫国土，并挫败中国的错误战略”。

预算申请的关键部分包括5亿9200万美元资金，用于开发、原型制作和采购新型反舰武器“快沉”（Quicksink）。它能够通过在水线以下引爆来击沉舰船，破坏船体龙骨。

报告称，这款新型武器有助于“对抗印太地区数量占优的敌方舰队”，显然指中国。

帕帕罗还提及用于其他武器计划的资金申请，尤其是秘密布雷项目，即在关键区域秘密布设雷区。报告称，这可协助美国“维持对关键水道的主导权”。

除了对华计划外，美国与以色列对伊朗的战争成本也在逐渐升高。美国星期四（5月28日）公布的数据显示，4月国防资本货物订单再次增长，达到222亿美元，已是有记录以来的第二高位。这表明伊朗战争正在推动对军事装备的需求。

美军印太司令提交涉台报告 拟增强对华威慑

2026年5月29日 18:28 / 联合早报

美军印太司令部司令帕帕罗4月提交给美国国会的报告，在对华措辞上比特朗普政府更为强硬，并详细阐述打算如何在亚洲规划特朗普政府大幅增长的国防预算资金。 （路透社档案照片）

美军印太司令部司令帕帕罗4月提交给美国国会的报告，在对华措辞上比特朗普政府更为强硬，并详细阐述打算如何在亚洲规划特朗普政府大幅增长的国防预算资金。 （路透社档案照片）

（华盛顿彭博电）美国印太司令部司令帕帕罗在提交给国会的报告中说，美军正悄然寻求增强在台湾问题上遏制或对抗中国大陆的能力，包括配备新型反舰导弹和先进水雷。

根据彭博社获得的这份121页文件，帕帕罗称中国人民解放军“正在所有领域进行历史性的扩张，并为两大主要任务做训练，一是强行实现台湾统一，二是对抗美国及其盟友的防御能力；北京的军事准备目标定在2027年”。

报道指出，帕帕罗的报告在对华措辞上比特朗普政府更为强硬，并且重新预测中国解放军武力攻台的可能时间为2027年，即解放军建军100周年。美国今年早些时候的一份情报评估，已不再采纳这一预期。

这份报告日期为4月6日，详细阐述美国军方对特朗普政府创纪录国防预算资金在亚洲的部署计划。帕帕罗敦促国会批准这笔高达1.5万亿美元（约1.9万亿新元）的额外支出，从而“捍卫国土，并挫败中国的错误战略”。

预算申请的关键部分包括5亿9200万美元资金，用于开发、原型制作和采购新型反舰武器“快沉”（Quicksink）。它能够通过在水线以下引爆来击沉舰船，破坏船体龙骨。

报告称，这款新型武器有助于“对抗印太地区数量占优的敌方舰队”，显然指中国。

帕帕罗还提及用于其他武器计划的资金申请，尤其是秘密布雷项目，即在关键区域秘密布设雷区。报告称，这可协助美国“维持对关键水道的主导权”。

除了对华计划外，美国与以色列对伊朗的战争成本也在逐渐升高。美国星期四（5月28日）公布的数据显示，4月国防资本货物订单再次增长，达到222亿美元，已是有记录以来的第二高位。这表明伊朗战争正在推动对军事装备的需求。

In California redistricting, pro-MAGA town likely to get a gay, liberal congressman

2026-05-29T10:04:04.361Z / https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/california-redistricting-pro-maga-town-likely-get-gay-liberal-congressman-2026-05-29/

Summary

California redrew districts, favoring Democrats, amid national Republican push for new maps

• Huntington Beach conservatives feel isolated and are skeptical over new congressman
• Robert Garcia, the city’s likely new congressman, pledges cooperation despite ideological clash

HUNTINGTON BEACH, California, May 29 (Reuters) – Huntington Beach, the right-leaning California city that banned the Pride flag from City Hall and elected a city council of MAGA supporters, is heavily favored to get a new Democratic congressman ​who is gay, progressive and an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump.

It’s a result of redrawing congressional districts. A flurry of redistricting was touched off when Trump pushed ‌states, starting with Texas, to come up with voting maps favorable to his Republican Party. With control of the U.S. House of Representatives at stake in November’s elections, heavily Democratic California countered the Texas redistricting, with voters approving a plan that targets five Republican seats.

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“So, two wrongs make a right?” Huntington Beach City Councilman Pat Burns said from his council office, where a bust of Trump that he once placed on the dais at city council meetings now sits on his desk. “It’s just California ​ugly-ass politics, and they are all about their agenda and not about the people. They don’t care about the people of California one bit.”

Huntington Beach counts itself among the cities and towns ​in roughly a dozen U.S. states caught up in the redistricting battle, with political parties reconfiguring voting maps to their advantage in what is known as gerrymandering.

As ⁠a result, voters can suddenly find themselves in a new district – with representation that they say fails to reflect their interests.

A conservative enclave in mostly liberal Southern California, Huntington Beach has set itself on a collision ​course with liberals in the Trump era, defying Democrats in the state capital on issues such as voter identification and housing density. Officially nicknamed Surf City USA, it reflects the individualist and independence-minded aspects of surf ​culture, not the cliché of laid-back free spirits.

At the moment, Huntington Beach, which banned the rainbow Pride flag and other nongovernmental banners from city property after a local voter referendum in 2024, is represented in the House by Representative Dave Min, a Democrat seen as moderate and pragmatic.

Redistricting, however, means that after the November elections the city will most likely be represented by the more progressive Robert Garcia, a 48-year-old gay immigrant, who said in an interview he has “been dealing with homophobia ​my whole life.”

A two-term Democratic U.S. representative, Garcia comes from Long Beach, a city of 450,000 people across the Los Angeles County line from Huntington Beach. Once in different districts, Long Beach and Huntington Beach have ​been coupled together into one district through gerrymandering and will share a representative in the House.

Born in Peru, Garcia came to the U.S. as a child. A former mayor of Long Beach, he was elected to Congress in 2022 ‌and won his ⁠2024 re-election by 36 percentage points. He is heavily favored to finish first in the primary election on June 2 that will test the new districts for the first time, and to prevail in the November general election.

Garcia, a Trump critic, is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, the congressional watchdog over the executive branch. His stands on issues including immigration, climate and healthcare clash with the MAGA agenda.

“I’ve represented people I don’t agree with on everything, my entire time as mayor, and currently as a member of Congress,” Garcia said. “That’s OK. That’s America.”

‘RULE BY FIAT’

Domnic McGee, a Huntington Beach Planning Commission member and outspoken conservative, sees ​redistricting as part of a broader effort by Democrats ​to consolidate power in California and advance policies ⁠he opposes. McGee said he plans to “fight for traditional American values” and resist “overreach” by the left.

“The Democrats now with redistricting are set to take even more power in California,” McGee said. “They want to rule by fiat.”

Janet Jacobs, who attended a recent city council meeting, is also firmly in the “Make America Great Again” camp.

“Trump is ​doing a hell of a job, and God is on his side,” said Jacobs, who wore a red baseball cap emblazoned with “Make Huntington Beach Great ​Again” and “7-0” on the side, ⁠extolling the 7-0 MAGA majority on the council.

Still, Garcia predicts cooperation rather than confrontation.

“I expect actually there’s going to be a lot of partnerships with the cities, especially communities like Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. While they might have a more conservative council, at the end of the day, they want the same thing that communities in Long Beach want,” Garcia told Reuters.

Garcia flagged one issue he said unites the district: offshore oil drilling. “Whether you’re in ⁠Huntington Beach or ​Newport Beach or Seal Beach, that is a huge concern to everybody here,” Garcia said. He said he would be “much more ​engaged on that issue” given the Trump administration’s moves toward reopening California’s coast to oil production.

Huntington Beach Mayor Casey McKeon also said he expects any representative to do the job professionally. He cited previous Representative Michelle Steel, a Republican who worked with a then-liberal council ​on beach sand replacement.

“She still did what was right for Huntington Beach,” McKeon said. “She didn’t let politics get in the way of that.”

Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Huntington Beach; editing by Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman

Nitrogen gas executions are constitutional, federal judge rules

2026-05-29T07:51:36-0400 / CBS News

Montgomery, Ala. — A federal judge ruled on Thursday that execution by nitrogen gas doesn’t violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, rejecting an Alabama inmate’s claim that it causes excessive suffering.

The ruling came after the first bench trial in the country to examine the constitutionality of the execution method that has now been used to put eight people to death, seven in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The ruling clears the way for Alabama and other states to continue with the method and is a setback for critics who hoped a fuller examination of Alabama’s protocol would halt its use.

The execution method, first used in 2024, involves strapping a respirator to the person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen. The lawsuit challenging the method was filed last year by death row inmate Jeffery Lee. Lee, 58, is scheduled to be executed with nitrogen gas on June 11 at a south Alabama prison.

“While Lee establishes that death by nitrogen hypoxia involves some suffering, he fails to show that the protocol is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks wrote.

Attorneys for the state and Lee disagreed on how long inmates are awake during a nitrogen gas execution. Marks wrote the evidence shows Alabama’s protocol “likely causes severe air hunger -the most severe form of breathing discomfort – for one to three minutes” but did not arise to a constitutional violation.

Lee’s attorneys indicated in court filings that they are appealing the decision.

The Alabama attorney general praised the judge’s decision.

“After the first full trial on nitrogen hypoxia in the entire country, the district court found it to be constitutional. The district court considered all the evidence and concluded that nitrogen hypoxia is not cruel and unusual, affirming that the question of capital punishment belongs to the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

Inmates executed by nitrogen gas have displayed various levels of shaking during the executions, and lawyers for the state and inmates have disagreed on whether those are involuntary or a sign of suffering. Alabama’s last nitrogen gas execution took more than 30 minutes to complete.

Marks noted that Lee faced a high legal bar because the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to find a state’s method of execution qualifies as cruel and unusual.

Five states have authorized nitrogen gas as an execution method, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, although only two have used it.

Lee was convicted of capital murder for killing Ellis and Thompson on Dec. 12, 1998, near the small town of Orrville, Alabama. Prosecutors said Lee entered a pawn shop with a sawed-off shotgun and fatally shot Jimmy Ellis, the owner of the store, and Elaine Thompson, a store employee.

A jury voted 7-5 that Lee should receive a sentence of life imprisonment. However, a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. Alabama in 2017 ended the practice of judicial override and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.

Lee’s legal team didn’t issue an immediate comment on the decision.

“The real torture of the death penalty is in the decades of waiting. With what we know about each of the available methods of being killed in Alabama or in the U.S., I can’t imagine anyone choosing conscious suffocation,” said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, a group that opposes the death penalty.

He added that Lee wouldn’t face the death penalty if sentenced today because judicial override has been abolished.

法国与西班牙通胀加速 为欧洲央行加息提供数据支撑

2026年5月29日 18:46 / 联合早报

法国5月份消费者价格指数同比上涨2.8%，涨幅略低于市场预期。图为巴黎附近的布雷蒂尼-奥尔日的一家有机食品杂货店。 （路透社档案照片）

法国和西班牙的通货膨胀率升至2024年以来最高水平，为欧洲央行加息提供进一步理由。

各国星期五（5月29日）发布的数据显示，因战争推动能源成本飙升，法国5月份消费者价格指数同比上涨2.8%，涨幅略低于市场预期；西班牙和意大利的该指数则分别同比上涨3.6%和3.3%，涨幅与预期一致。

彭博社报道，欧元区主要经济体通胀数据将密集公布，将有助于欧洲央行官员判断中东冲突推高通胀的程度，以及是否需要做出应对。

美国总统特朗普对伊朗发动军事行动三个月以来，从鹰派的执行委员会成员伊莎贝尔·施纳贝尔（Isabel Schnabel），到鸽派的首席经济师菲利普·莱恩（Philip Lane），欧洲央行政策制定者在释放信号，称借贷成本很可能需要自2023年以来首次上调。