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Trump’s Justice Department antitrust head Gail Slater stepping down

February 12, 2026 4:21 PM UTC / Reuters

Feb 12 (Reuters) – The Trump administration’s head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division said Thursday she is stepping down less than a year after being appointed by President Donald Trump.

Gail Slater was confirmed in March to head the division, which enforces laws against illegal monopolies and anticompetitive business behavior. She said on X it was “with great sadness and abiding hope” that she was leaving on Thursday. “It was indeed the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role,” she added.

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Slater’s move throws the division into uncertainty as companies facing antitrust probes have increasingly hired Trump-connected lobbyists to influence the outcomes of their cases. It leaves the division with few senior leaders, following the departure of the division’s head of civil litigation this week.

The White House referred questions on Slater’s departure to the DOJ.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “On behalf of the Department of Justice, we thank Gail Slater for her service to the Antitrust Division which works to protect consumers, promote affordability, and expand economic opportunity.”

In July, Reuters and other outlets reported two of Slater’s deputies were fired for insubordination after a settlement greenlighting Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE.N) $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks. The move exposed a power struggle within the Trump administration between proponents of robust antitrust enforcement and dealmakers seeking to leverage influence.

Slater was an economic adviser to JD Vance while he was a senator, and previously worked in the White House during Trump’s first term. She also worked for a decade as an antitrust lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission, where she brought cases to block mergers including Whole Foods’ acquisition of organic grocer Wild Oats.

Vice President JD Vance’s office declined to comment on Slater’s departure.

She had said her priority was to use antitrust enforcement to help Americans struggling with high living costs. The DOJ launched probes into egg producers and the meatpacking industry last year.

Her division continued the U.S. crackdown on Big Tech companies that started during Trump’s first term, with major cases against Alphabet’s Google and Apple.

Reporting by Jody Godoy in Los Angeles and David Shepardson in Washington, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Iran regime said to offer jailed protesters’ families leniency in exchange for public displays of loyalty

February 12, 2026 / 12:37 PM EST / CBS News

The families of jailed Iranian protesters say the country’s rulers have proposed a cruel bargain: publicly celebrate the Islamic Revolution that brought them to power, or risk the lives of their loved ones.

Human rights organizations say more than 12,000 Iranians were arrested amid the wave of anti-regime protests that swept the country in early January.

Bazdasht Shodegan is an organization formed by former Iranian prisoners that offers online support for detainees and their families. It says the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence contacted the families of some current prisoners offering what the group called “an inhumane dilemma” — either attend marches on Wednesday celebrating the 47th anniversary of the revolution, or put the lives of their children at risk.

Several other human rights groups that monitor events in Iran also reported the messages delivered to prisoners’ families.

Two military members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stand guard as a schoolboy carries a national flag before participating in a pro-government rally in Azadi (Freedom) Square, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11, 2026. Attendance in the celebrations was mandatory for all government employees and students. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Getty

Holding families to ransom this way is not new. The Iranian regime has a long history of putting pressure on the families of anti-regime dissidents and demonstrators.

“On the one hand, a prisoner is forced to confess under brutal torture,” says Bazdasht Shodegan. “On the other hand, his family is forced to pretend to support the regime. This is a complete cycle of mental and physical torture.”

The families contacted recently were told that if they wanted their children — many of whom face long prison sentences or even the death penalty — released or spared the most severe punishments, they would have to join the pro-regime, state-organized revolutionary celebrations to prove their loyalty in public.

To add insult to injury, they were instructed to take videos of themselves displaying regime “loyalty” and send them to the security services.

These videos, along with statements by well known figures recanting their support for the January protests, amount to trophies for the regime — tools of humiliation and intimidation designed to head off future dissent.

One such figure is businessman Mohamed Saedinia.

He is famous in Iran as the owner of a chain of candy shops and buzzing cafes beloved by young liberals in Tehran. At the start of the uprising, Saedinia closed his shops and posted a social media message saying he stood in solidarity with other Iranians who had shut their businesses to register their anger at the catastrophic plunge in Iran’s currency.

Saedinia was subsequently arrested along with his son and accused of supporting “the rioters.” Iranian authorities warned that if he was convicted, the regime would seize his assets.

This week, Saedinia’s groveling U-turn was published by Fars, Iran’s semi-official pro-regime news service.

“Unfortunately, due to problems that occurred in the market,” said the statement attributed to Saedinia, “my son mistakenly closed our shops in line with the actions of other Tehran businesses. Both he and I realize our mistake.”

“Therefore, we … apologize to the dear people of Iran and will show our obedience to our beloved leader and our disgust with criminal America by participating in the march to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution.”

No one in Iran may believe it, but everyone will get the message.

Seyed Rahim Bathaei contributed to this report.

Hawley clashes with Minnesota AG Ellison over fraud: ‘You ought to be indicted’

Missouri senator accuses Minnesota attorney general of assisting people later charged in COVID-19 welfare fraud scheme

By Ashley Oliver
Fox News

Published February 12, 2026 1:54pm EST

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Thursday called for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to resign and suggested he should face criminal charges, accusing him of assisting people later charged in a sprawling welfare fraud scheme.

The confrontation came during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing in which Hawley questioned Ellison, an elected Democrat, about his actions surrounding the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which was at the center of a $250 million scheme to defraud a child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hawley pointed to a meeting in December 2021 between Ellison and people who were later indicted, arguing that the Minnesota attorney general surreptitiously attempted to help them during what public records say was a 54-minute encounter.

Hawley said Ellison accepted $10,000 in campaign donations days after the meeting from individuals later charged.

“You helped fraudsters defraud your state and this government … and you got a fat campaign contribution out of it,” Hawley said, yelling, “You ought to be indicted.”

Hawley later added that Ellison “ought to be in jail.”

“Well, see what you can do about it,” Ellison shot back.

The Minnesota attorney general forcefully denied the accusations, saying Hawley was “cherry-picking quotes” and mischaracterizing the meeting. Ellison said he did not help the defendants. His office assisted with information that led to prosecutions and convictions in the broader investigation, Ellison said.

The entire exchange was loud and contentious as both men interrupted one another, causing committee chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to interject at one point and call for lowering the temperature.

Former Attorney General Merrick Garland called the Feeding our Future case the largest pandemic-related fraud in the country, and dozens of individuals, mostly of Somali descent, have been charged in connection with it.

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently intensified the department’s investigations into fraud in Minnesota, sending additional manpower to the embattled U.S. attorney’s office there to help with ongoing inquiries into possible fraud across several welfare programs.

Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.

The United States is warning Peru that China’s growing control over a major Pacific port could threaten the country’s sovereignty, escalating tensions over Beijing’s expanding footprint in Latin America.

The concern centers on the $1.3 billion deep-water port in Chancay, north of Lima, which has become a flashpoint between Washington and Beijing after a Peruvian court ruling limited government regulatory oversight of the project.

The State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said on social media that it was “concerned about latest reports that Peru could be powerless to oversee Chancay, one of its largest ports, which is under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners,” adding: “We support Peru’s sovereign right to oversee critical infrastructure in its own territory. Let this be a cautionary tale for the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty.”

China’s foreign ministry rejected the comments as “rumor-mongering and smearing” and insisted the project remains under Peruvian authority, according to The Associated Press report.

Asia analyst Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital: “Chancay is so central that analysts say it will redirect trade across the South Pacific. We know Beijing considers ports to be dual-use and strategic. China, held up the BlackRock deal to acquire the CK Hutchinson port operations in the Panama Canal Zone even though the ports are nowhere near China itself.”

“In times of war, China will not allow its port operations to load, unload, or service American ships or ships coming from or going to U.S. ports,” he warned.

Jack Burnham, senior analyst in the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the port reflects a broader strategic push by Beijing in the region.

“The Chancay port is a keystone in China’s investment in Latin America — its size and proximity provide a bridge across the Pacific and access to another market to fuel Beijing’s export-driven economic engine,” Burnham said.

“China’s investment in Peru is predicated on Beijing grasping the sinews of Lima’s critical infrastructure to gain influence. With effective control over the port cemented for now by a lower Peruvian court ruling, China gains access to one of the largest critical infrastructure projects in the region, a position from which it could exercise significant control.”

The dispute comes as Washington and Beijing compete for influence across Latin America, where China has expanded investment through infrastructure projects and trade, analysts say.

China’s state-owned shipping giant Cosco, which holds a majority stake in the project, dismissed U.S. concerns and said the court ruling “in no way involves aspects of sovereignty,” adding that Peruvian authorities still oversee security, environmental compliance and customs, according to The Associated Press.

Peru’s transport infrastructure regulator, Ositran, has said it plans to appeal the ruling, arguing the port should not be exempt from the same oversight applied to other major facilities.

Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told Fox News Digital that China strongly opposes what it called U.S. “false accusations and disinformation” regarding the Chancay port, citing remarks made by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson at a regular briefing on Feb. 12.

He described Chancay as a flagship China-Peru Belt and Road project and South America’s first “smart and green” port, saying the first phase is expected to cut shipping time between Peru and China to 23 days and reduce logistics costs by more than 20%, while generating about $4.5 billion annually for Peru and creating over 8,000 direct jobs. Liu said the project will strengthen Peru’s role as a regional trade gateway linking Asia and Latin America and support broader development, including environmental initiatives tied to wetlands and coastal habitats.

He added that China–Latin America partnerships are driven by shared development goals and benefit people on both sides.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Civil rights attorneys predict charges against Don Lemon, others will be dismissed, citing flaws in FACE Act

2026-02-12T10:12:18-0500 / CBS News

The indictment against journalist Don Lemon and eight others will likely be dismissed because it hinges on a charge that is viewed as so constitutionally flawed that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has never attempted to use it to prosecute interference in a house of worship, legal experts say.

The Jan. 29 indictment alleges that the defendants’ involvement in an anti-ICE protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul violated the FACE Act, which prohibits people from intimidating or interfering with people exercising their constitutional freedom to practice religion. It also charges them with a felony of conspiring to interfere with individuals’ religious rights.

They are due to be arraigned on Friday.

The problem, some former Civil Rights Division lawyers say, is that the section in the FACE Act criminalizing interference at houses of worship fundamentally misstates the rights people have under the First Amendment.

The First Amendment protects individuals’ religious freedom from government interference. But it does not protect them from interference by private individuals, like the protesters and journalists charged in the indictment, they say.

Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to address rising concerns about threats and intimidation that women were facing at reproductive health clinics.

Since then, it has only been used by the Justice Department to prosecute people accused of interfering with access to medical care at such clinics — and not at houses of worship — because courts have found that interfering with access to a reproductive health clinic impacts interstate commerce.

The constitutional problems with the law, as related to worshipers, are part of the reason prosecutors have never attempted to use it in a religious freedom case.

It’s also just one in a series of red flags that former Justice Department officials believe could spell trouble for the case and lead to a quick dismissal.

“This is not a legitimate use of the FACE Act. This is wholly outside the core purpose that the law was passed, and I will not be surprised if these cases are quickly thrown out,” said Kristen Clarke, the former Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the decision to use the FACE Act in this case.

No probable cause and no career prosecutors

---

From the moment the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division tried to charge Lemon, journalist Georgia Fort, Lemon’s driver and local activists who attended the protest, officials have run into road blocks.

Lemon’s attorney has previously said he was there to cover the event in his capacity as a journalist, whose activities are protected by the First Amendment.

The affidavit in support of the complaint was made by an ICE agent with less than a year of experience. Affidavits in cases like this are usually filed by FBI agents, since they are the ones investigating criminal civil rights violations.

Doug Micko, a magistrate judge in the District of Minnesota, rejected arrest warrants for Lemon and four others on the FACE Act misdemeanor charge and a second felony civil rights charge alleging they conspired to violate the churchgoers’ rights.

He also rejected the FACE Act charge for several others who were arrested, including prominent local activists Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Allen, writing “no probable cause” in the margin of the warrants.

“This isn’t a prosecution of First Amendment rights — this prosecution is a violation of First Amendment rights,” Levy Armstrong’s attorney Jordan Kushner told CBS News.

When the Justice Department asked the chief judge to review Micko’s decision, and he was unable to respond as quickly as the department wanted, it asked a federal appellate court to intervene and force the lower court to sign the arrest warrants. That court declined to do so.

In court filings related to the appeal, Minnesota Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz also criticized the strength of the evidence against the journalists, noting “there is no evidence” that they “engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”

Career prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, meanwhile, also refused to get involved in the case because they were concerned about the lack of evidence that the defendants had committed a federal crime, a source previously told CBS News.

Despite resistance from judges and career prosecutors, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division rushed to indict Lemon, Fort, and the co-defendants for violating the FACE Act and for conspiring to interfere with the churchgoers’ religious rights.

The indictment only names politically appointed Justice Department lawyers in the Civil Rights Division.

File photo identifying Justice Department Civil Division counsel Orlando Sonza as a 2022 Criminal Division Legal Summer Intern and then law clerk in the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office. Sonza’s personnel file in Hamilton County, obtained through public records request

One of the main attorneys assigned to the case — Orlando Sonza — is a failed Ohio Republican congressional candidate who graduated from law school in 2022 and whose only prosecutorial experience until now entailed working in the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office over the course of about a year and a half as an intern, a law clerk and assistant prosecutor, according to his personnel file seen by CBS News.

A second Civil Rights Division attorney who was added to the case after the indictment was returned, Greta Gieseke, is also a 2022 law school graduate who is assigned to the Civil Rights Division’s appellate section.

A third lawyer added to the case, Josh Zuckerman, is a 2020 law school graduate who worked as an associate for four years at the multinational law firm Gibson Dunn before joining the Justice Department.

A few hours after CBS News sought comment, Civil Rights Division Acting Deputy Associate Attorney General Robert Keenan, who previously appeared in court during an initial appearance for several of the defendants, formally entered an appearance in the case.

Keenan is a longtime federal prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Orange County, California, though he has not handled many civil rights matters, a review of court filings show.

He was co-counsel on a 2001 color of law prosecution involving two jail employees, one of whom was acquitted at trial, according to court filings and sources familiar with the matter.

Last year, he argued that a local deputy sheriff convicted of civil rights violations in California should have the felony counts struck and should not serve prison time, prompting several of his colleagues to resign.

A few months later, he was dispatched to Louisville to handle the sentencing for a former Louisville police officer who was convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights, where the Justice Department recommended the judge to impose a sentence of just one day of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

“The Department of Justice stands firmly behind the highly qualified attorneys entrusted with enforcing federal law,” a department spokeswoman told CBS News.

She added that Sonza helped convict a defendant in a felony rape trial in Ohio, while Gieseke handled “complex civil and criminal matters” while clerking in federal district and appellate courts.

Keenan, she added, “is a career federal prosecutor with more than 25 years of experience.”

Since the indictment was returned, Magistrate Judge Micko has scolded the lawyers on the case for divulging the details of sealed filings in public court documents, and warned them that future violations “will not be tolerated.”

“When a federal prosecutor makes a decision to charge someone criminally, it is imperative that the Justice Department have a seasoned, sage and experienced prosecutor to vet that process,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor. “When politics enters that process, bad things happen.”

One defendant in the Minnesota case filed a motion this week to dismiss the indictment, arguing that it fails to state a federal offense against him.

Uneven enforcement of FACE Act under Bondi

---

When it was enacted 31 years ago, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, was primarily intended to prevent patients at reproductive health clinics from facing threats as they sought care.

To win Republican support in Congress, GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah extended it to include houses of worship as a compromise with Democrats.

Over the years, the Justice Department has successfully secured convictions against both abortion opponents trying to block access to reproductive health clinics and abortion rights activists.

The reason why that part of the law has proven successful is because courts have found that reproductive health clinics are commercial businesses, and therefore engaged in interstate commerce, said Laura-Kate Bernstein, a former Civil Rights Division prosecutor who handled FACE Act cases.

“There is a wealth of litigation and circuit court decisions holding that the reproductive health aspect of the FACE Act are constitutional,” she told CBS News, noting that health care clinics are “inherently interstate” in how they operate because they receive medical supplies and offer services to out-of-state patients.

A church, however, is typically a local operation that is not engaged in interstate commerce. That and the constitutional concerns have made it untenable to use in any criminal case, she said.

“There really is no interstate commerce clause hook,” she said, noting that the indictment also fails to cite one.

Even as the Justice Department has sought to use the FACE Act as a prosecutorial tool in this case, it has scaled back enforcement in other contexts.

Three days after President Trump took office, he issued nearly two dozen pardons to anti-abortion activists who were charged in FACE Act cases.

The following day, the former acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle ordered the Civil Rights Division to immediately dismiss three pending FACE Act prosecutions involving anti-abortion activists and to cease pursuing any new cases unless they had permission from the head of the division.

Pam Bondi, on her first day as attorney general, ordered the Weaponization Working Group to review prior FACE Act prosecutions during President Joe Biden’s tenure to see if they unfairly targeted conservative Christians.

A review of those cases is still pending and is expected to be conducted, according to one source with direct knowledge of the working group’s plans.

At the same time, however, the Justice Department has allowed FACE Act cases involving protesters at crisis pregnancy centers that discourage abortions to continue without interference.

In one such case, the Justice Department’s career civil rights prosecutors were permitted to proceed with a criminal case in Florida’s Middle District against abortion rights activists who were accused of trying to scare volunteers and workers at a crisis pregnancy clinic that counseled on alternatives to abortion.

The defendant who went to trial was ultimately sentenced to a 120-day prison term in March 2025.

Some former department lawyers say the uneven application of the FACE Act is evidence of the weaponization of the Justice Department against Mr. Trump’s political enemies.

“We have seen across the civil rights statutes that the department enforces the ways in which they have weaponized the use of these laws, not to protect the civil rights of people of this country, but to further their political agenda,” said Johnathan Smith, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division.

“I think this use of the FACE Act is consistent with that pattern.”

热带气旋“格扎尼”过境 马达加斯加进入“国家灾难状态”

2026年2月12日 23:55 / 联合早报

2月11日，热带气旋“格扎尼”在马达加斯加港口城市图阿马西纳肆虐，所经之处满目疮痍。 （路透社）

马达加斯加政府发布政令，宣布受热带气旋“格扎尼”过境影响，马达加斯加进入“国家灾难状态”。

政令星期三（2月11日）说，热带气旋“格扎尼”（Gezani）过境造成人员伤亡、基础设施和住房被毁，一些地区损失惨重，马达加斯加依法宣布进入“国家灾难状态”，政府负责组织救援。

新华社报道，“格扎尼”10日在马达加斯加东部城市图阿马西纳（Toamasina）登陆，据马达加斯加国家风险和灾害管理办公室11日发布的最新数据，“格扎尼”致逾25万人受灾。

灾害管理办公室星期四公布了最新伤亡人数，称“格扎尼”在第二大城市图阿马西纳导致至少35人死亡，并造成严重破坏。

“格扎尼”登陆时的风速高达每小时250公里（155英里）。灾害管理办公室说，已记录35人死亡，另有六人失踪，至少374人受伤，多达8800人流离失所。

马达加斯加新任领导人兰德里亚尼里纳星期四（12日）呼吁国际社会“团结一致”给予支援，此前狂风摧毁了图阿马西纳及其周边地区高达75%的地区。

马达加斯加是非洲第一大岛，位于西印度洋海域，每年12月至次年3月是热带气旋多发季。

NY Fed report says Americans pay for almost all of Trump’s tariffs

February 12, 2026 4:16 PM UTC / Reuters

By Michael S. Derby

节点运行失败

The container ship Talos passes under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to arrive in New York Harbor in New York City, U.S., January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary

• NY Fed report finds Americans pay almost all of Trump’s tariffs
• Fed officials tie tariffs to inflation overshoot
• Tariff outlook uncertain amid court, legislative action

Feb 12 (Reuters) – Americans are shouldering almost all of President Donald Trump’s import tax surge, a report, opens new tab from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday.

The bank said 90% of the tariffs imposed by the president on imported goods are borne by American consumers and companies. The report pushes back against the Trump administration’s argument that the levies are paid by foreigners.

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The report evaluated how tariffs impacted the economy last year, when the average of the taxes went from 2.6% to 13%. The report noted that the average level shifted over the course of the year and was at its highest in April and May, when Trump pumped up tariffs on Chinese goods to 125% before lowering them back to a still heady 113%.

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The authors based their analysis on how tariffs worked in the first Trump term. When faced with these types of taxes, “our past work found that foreign exporters did not lower their prices at all, so the full incidence of the tariffs was borne by the U.S. That is, there was 100% pass-through from tariffs into import prices.”

The paper said that between January and August of last year Americans took 94% of the hit from Trump’s tariffs. During September and October, that ebbed to 92%, settling to 86% in November.

The New York Fed findings jibe with a report, opens new tab put out by the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday.

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It said “higher tariffs directly increase the cost of imported goods, raising prices for U.S. consumers and businesses.” When it comes to who will pay the tariffs, the CBO said foreign exporters will absorb 5% of the cost, and in the near term, “U.S. businesses will absorb 30% of the import price increases by reducing their profit margins; the remaining 70% will be passed through to consumers by raising prices.”

TAX TROUBLE

The imposition of the large taxes on imported goods is a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s policy regime. They are being used to raise revenue for the government, and as a tool to punish other nations the president believes are taking advantage of the U.S., and as a mechanism to re-shore industry.

The imposition of the tariffs has been highly erratic, with the routine imposition of large increases followed by retreats and delays, generating periods of large volatility in financial markets and creating uncertainty in the broader economy.

Federal Reserve officials believe that much of the overshoot of their 2% inflation target this year is related to trade tariffs, and that has complicated their ability to cut interest rates after 75 basis points worth of easing last year, which was done in large part to support the job market.

On Friday, the government will release its latest report on the state of consumer prices in January. Economists expect to see a slight moderation in the year-over-year headline reading for the closely watched gauge.

Fed officials expect tariff impacts to wane as the year moves forward and to likely represent a one-time increase in the price level. That could open the door to more rate cuts, although it also means that the tariffs are likely to lead to an overall increase in the cost of living faced by Americans.

That said, at least one Fed official sees a more benign situation with the tariffs. Speaking on Monday, Fed Governor Stephen Miran, formerly a top economic advisor to the president, argued tariff impacts on the economy have been “quite muted” and the data doesn’t support the idea American businesses are in fact passing on their higher costs directly to those in the U.S.

The Trump administration faced a potential major setback in some of its tariff powers on Wednesday, when the House of Representatives voted to end his emergency tariffs on Canada. The Supreme Court is also set to rule at some point on the legality of many of Trump’s tariffs.

Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Andrea Ricci

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Trump officials oust Abigail Slater as DOJ’s antitrust chief, sources say

Updated on: February 12, 2026 / 12:35 PM EST / CBS News

Top Trump administration officials had decided to oust Justice Department antitrust chief Abigail Slater and had discussions with her shortly before she announced on social media that she was leaving the department, sources told CBS News.

Slater didn’t cite a reason for her departure in her statement on X, where she wrote, “It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today.”

But she had lost the trust of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

File: Abigail Slater, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, speaks outside federal court in Washington on April 21, 2025. Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In her post as assistant attorney general for antitrust, she determined whether business merger deals would be approved or get derailed, and her every move was closely watched by the business community.

Trump officials believed Slater had undermined pending cases because of disagreements with leadership and had disobeyed requests, including to not embark on expensive travel to Europe and on other matters, two sources said. On one occasion, Slater angered Bondi when she traveled to a conference in Paris without Bondi’s permission, prompting Bondi to cut off access to Slater’s government credit cards, one source said.

Vice President JD Vance was aware of the fraught dynamics with Slater at the agency, two sources said.

Bondi in a statement to CBS News said: “On behalf of the Department of Justice, we thank Gail Slater for her service to the Antitrust Division which works to protect consumers, promote affordability, and expand economic opportunity.”

Slater had been on the job for less than a year. Her exit marks the end of a short tenure that was fraught with tension between her office and senior department leaders, sources told CBS News.

Justice officials have placed Omeed Assefi in the role as acting antitrust chief, three sources said.

Earlier this month, Semafor reported that Slater had announced on her X account that her chief of staff would be stepping down, only to later delete the post. According to Semafor, Slater had sought to terminate Sara Matar by not renewing her contract, but was overruled by Bondi.

And amid a dispute related to the Justice Department’s settlement greenlighting Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, Justice Department chief of staff and Acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle fired Roger Alford, who had served in the first Trump administration and was Slater’s top deputy, and Bill Rinner, a former counsel at hedge fund Apollo Global Management who was in charge of merger enforcement.

In a scathing speech in August, Alford blasted “MAGA-In-Name-Only lobbyists and DOJ officials” who were pursuing an antitrust agenda that curried favor with special interests.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this report said Abigail Slater had fired Roger Alford and Bill Rinner, but then-Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle fired Alford and Rinner. The article has been updated.

Gallup ends its presidential tracking poll, the latest shift in the public opinion landscape

PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 10:41 AM ET / CNN

By

[Jennifer Agiesta]

3 hr ago

The White House on February 10, 2026.

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Gallup, one of the country’s most well-known polling firms, announced Wednesday that it will no longer track presidential approval or favorability of political figures. The move ends the longest-running continuous effort to track US opinion of the nation’s president, dating back to the tenure of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the late 1930s.

The company attributes the change to a shift toward research on “issues and conditions that shape people’s lives.” Gallup has some of the longest trend data in polling on public opinion about prominent issues and the nation’s mood, which it plans to continue, and says that it will no longer “publish assessments of individual political figures.”

The end of presidential approval tracking at Gallup is the latest in a long line of shifts that have remade the landscape of polling over the last few decades.

Some major public pollsters, including Gallup, stepped back from conducting polling on which candidate voters prefer, sometimes referred to as horserace polling. Changes in the ways people communicate made it harder, more time-consuming and more expensive to conduct polling by telephone, long the gold-standard of survey methodology and the methodology Gallup has used for its presidential approval tracking. That’s led to major shifts in how public pollsters do their work.

And long-running, prominent public polling partnerships – such as CNN’s former partnership with Gallup and USA Today, the partnership between CBS News and the New York Times, and between NBC News and the Wall Street Journal – have ended or changed.

The standard job approval question used by Gallup since the presidency of Harry S. Truman – “do you approve or disapprove of the way (name) is handling his job as president” – has been adopted and carried forward by hundreds of researchers since. CNN’s most recent tracking of polls on President Donald Trump’s approval rating includes 134 high-quality polls on that metric conducted by someone other than Gallup since the start of his second term in office.

Trump’s current average approval rating in the CNN Poll of Polls stands at 39% approve to 59% disapprove, similar to Gallup’s final measure in December 2025, which found 36% of Americans approving of Trump with 59% disapproving.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.

Southwest says its has “some kinks we are trying to work out” after launching new boarding process

February 12, 2026 / 11:45 AM EST / CBS News

Southwest Airlines is still working out kinks in its boarding process two weeks after the discount carrier switched to assigned seating.

Southwest officials told CBS News that one of the main issues the airline is troubleshooting is overhead bin space. In some cases, customers who are part of the airline’s loyalty program and others who paid for extra legroom are finding they don’t have storage above their seats because early boarders are taking up the overhead compartments at the front of the plane. This is forcing them to walk back several rows to store their bags.

The issue, which could slow boarding and deplaning, has sparked ire among loyal Southwest customers, with some taking to social media to voice their complaints.

“On a Southwest flight for work and it’s actually awful. New process is terrible. I’m in row four. Boarding group 5, no overhead bin space until rows 20. Actually insane. @SouthwestAir,” one X user wrote on Monday.

Some flyers are also expressing frustration with how seats are assigned. Southwest announced in July 2024 that it was scrapping its decades-old policy, which allowed customers to choose cabin seats on a first-come, first-served basis. The airline now offers assigned seats, while giving passengers the choice to pay for certain seats, including those offering more legroom.

One X user said Thursday that his two-year-old was assigned a seat in a row without any family members. “My wife and two kids (5 and 2) are flying @SouthwestAir today. And because I refuse to pay for seats, their seats were auto-assigned,” he wrote. “My 2 year old in his own row without his mom or sister.”

Southwest says its own research found 80% of its flyers preferred assigned seats. The airline spent years testing the boarding process using computer simulations and in-person tests meant to mimic real-world conditions.

Southwest is now making adjustments to address some of the issues that have cropped up, an airline official told CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. The changes are expected to be rolled out in the near future and will likely involve having premium and elite flyers board earlier.

“I think that we should expect some hiccups — that’s inevitable,” Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told correspondent Kris Van Cleave in a January interview.

“It’s going to be a huge change,” he said. “The airline is abandoning a 50-plus-year-old business practice and adopting something that is tried and true by every other airline in the U.S., so hopefully it works well. There will be some teething pains; that’s to be expected. But Southwest says that they are prepared for it.”

Edited by Aimee Picchi

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/southwest-airlines-launches-assigned-seating-new-boarding-process/