Appeals court upholds restrictions on Los Angeles immigration arrests
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(LOS ANGELES) — An appeals court upheld a lower court’s order to temporarily block federal immigration agents from conducting immigration-related arrests in Los Angeles without probable cause.
In the ruling on Friday night, the ninth circuit court of appeals agreed with a federal judge that immigration agents cannot use race, ethnicity or other factors, including speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, as the basis for reasonable suspicion to stop people.
“We agree with the district court that, in the context of the Central District of California, the four enumerated factors at issue — apparent race, ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, particular location and type of work, even when considered together — describe only a broad profile and do not demonstrate reasonable suspicion for any particular stop,” the three judge panel said.
The appeals court found that the Trump administration did not dispute in filings that definitive stops in Los Angeles have occurred based on the factors and did not dispute the district court’s conclusion that the reliance on them “does not satisfy the constitutional requirement of reasonable suspicion.”
The judges concluded that plaintiffs “are likely to succeed” in showing that the Trump administration stopped and detained people based on their race, place of work and language.
Last month, immigrant advocacy groups filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unconstitutional sweeps in Los Angeles.
(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the possibility he could change his strategy to end the government shutdown by negotiating legislative changes with Democrats, telling reporters on Tuesday that he doesn’t “have any strategy” to end the impasse in place of the GOP’s lackluster pressure campaign to pass a “clean” continuing resolution.
Johnson on Tuesday pushed Democrats to support the House-passed funding bill and slammed the Democrats’ $1.5 trillion proposal, which extends health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and reverses cuts to Medicaid.
against Democrats has so far failed to break the standoff, Johnson reiterated that the House-passed bill is a “clean” continuing resolution — free from legislative gimmicks or political games.
“Why don’t I change my strategy? I don’t have any strategy,” the speaker told reporters. “I’m doing the right thing, the clearly obvious thing, the traditional thing.”
Asked whether he may consider a different negotiation track as the pressure campaign against Democrats has so far failed to break the standoff, Johnson reiterated that the House-passed bill is a “clean” continuing resolution — free from legislative gimmicks or political games.
“Why don’t I change my strategy? I don’t have any strategy,” the speaker told reporters. “I’m doing the right thing, the clearly obvious thing, the traditional thing.”
The Senate is set to vote Tuesday night — its eighth time — on the GOP-backed “clean” continuing resolution that would fund the government. It’s expected to fail again as the shutdown enters its third workweek.
Congressional Democrats representing Maryland and Virginia — where a significant number of federal workers reside — criticized Republicans over the shutdown on Tuesday morning and supported the workers.
“What we have seen happen to our federal employees we will continues to speak out against,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, said. “We want them to know we appreciate them, we appreciate your service to our country, we still need you, we still need what you offer our country and we will continue to work until you can be able to offer it.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought are “viscously” attacking federal employees.
OMB is working on ways to get paychecks to federal law-enforcement officers amid the ongoing shutdown, according to an OMB official. This comes after recent moves to pay members of the military and fund the critical Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children program.
Trump said he’s directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to pay members of the military on Wednesday, Oct. 15 despite the shutdown.
A senior Trump administration official said on Tuesday that the military pay will come from the Department of Defense’s research and development funds — winning approval from Speaker Johnson.
“Look, my understanding of this is they have every right to move the funds around, duly appropriated dollars from Congress to the Department of Defense,” Johnson said Tuesday. “If the Democrats want to go to court and challenge troops being paid, bring it. OK?”
OMB said on its X account on Tuesday that the Trump administration is “making every preparation” to ride out the government shutdown without caving to Democrats’ demands. The agency said they’d continue cutting the federal workforce in the meantime.
“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” the post said.
Lawmakers are still in a stalemate with negotiations at a standstill.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” Johnson said on Monday.
The record is 35 days and that was set in Trump’s first term.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during an MSNBC interview Monday that he does not believe the American people will allow the federal government shutdown to proceed much longer because they’ll pressure Republicans to negotiate with Democrats.
Jeffries said Republicans remain unwilling to negotiate over health care as the shutdown continues.
“House Republicans have actually canceled votes for the third consecutive week because they’d rather keep the government shut down than deal with the cost-of-living crisis that exists in the United States of America,” Jeffries said.
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Washington D.C., June 8, 2017. Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s handpicked U.S. Attorney in Virginia is planning to ask a grand jury in the coming days to indict former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress, despite prosecutors and investigators determining there was insufficient evidence to charge him, sources with direct knowledge of the probe told ABC News.
Earlier this week, prosecutors presented Lindsey Halligan — Trump’s former personal attorney whom he appointed to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia — with a detailed memo recommending that she decline to bring perjury and obstruction charges against Comey, the sources familiar with the memo said.
A monthslong investigation into Comey by DOJ prosecutors failed to establish probable cause of a crime — meaning that not only would they be unable to secure a conviction of Comey by proving the claims beyond a reasonable doubt, but that they couldn’t reach a significantly lower standard to secure an indictment, the sources said.
According to Justice Department guidelines, prosecutors are generally barred from bringing charges unless they can prove a defendant will “more likely than not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased trier of fact and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.”
Despite their recommendations, Halligan — who has never prosecuted a criminal case in her career as an insurance lawyer — plans to present evidence to a grand jury before the statute of limitations for the alleged offense expires next week, the sources said.
Comey’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Halligan’s apparent plan to seek charges against Comey follows a clear directive from Trump, who over the weekend directly called for prosecutions against Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Former Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Susan Monarez arrives to testify before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on September 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony from fired CDC employees and the implications on children’s health. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez on Wednesday said she was fired by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for “holding the line on scientific integrity.”
Monarez gave a detailed timeline before the Senate’s Health committee on the chain of events that she said led to her abrupt ousting.
A pivotal moment, she said, was an August meeting in which she said Kennedy told her to preemptively accept recommendations from a CDC vaccine advisory panel and to fire career officials overseeing vaccine policy.
“I would not commit to that, and I believe it is the true reason I was fired,” Monarez said. Monarez said Kennedy was “very upset” when she pushed back in the meeting.
Kennedy, in a hearing before a different Senate panel earlier this month, disputed Monarez’s version of events. He denied telling Monarez to accept vaccine recommendations without scientific evidence, and claimed she was fired in part because she told him she was untrustworthy.
“I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said, ‘No,'” Kennedy replied. “If you had an employee who told you they weren’t trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, Senator?” Kennedy had told Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a fiery exchange at that hearing.
Republican senators pressed Monarez on Wednesday on that point. “Did you tell the secretary you were untrustworthy?” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, asked Monarez.
“He told me he could not trust me because I had shared information related to our conversation beyond his staff. I told him, if you cannot trust me, then you can fire me,” Monarez replied.
Monarez was referring to her outreach to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chair of the committee, whom she contacted in between meetings with Kennedy to alert him to the growing tension.
In one dramatic exchange, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin accused Monarez of being dishonest in her characterization of her private conversation with Kennedy and claimed the meeting had been recorded.
Cassidy then requested if such materials had been provided to Mullin that they be made available to all of the senators on the committee. Cassidy also called on HHS to release a recording if it had one.
“If a recording does not exist, I ask Senator Mullin to retract his line of questions,” Cassidy said.
Moments later, Cassidy interrupted the hearing to say that there were reports that Mullin had told reporters he was “mistaken in saying that the RFK-Monarez meeting was recorded.”
“But in case he was mistaken that he was mistaken, if there is a recording, it should be released,” Cassidy said.
Cassidy, a doctor from Louisiana who was one of the key votes to confirm Kennedy, said Wednesday’s hearing was in the aim of “radical transparency.”
“Part of our responsibility today is to ask ourselves, if someone is fired 29 days after every Republican votes for her, the Senate confirms her, the secretary said in her swearing in that she has ‘unimpeachable scientific credentials’ and the president called her an incredible mother and dedicated public servant — like what happened? Did we fail? Was there something we should have done differently?” Cassidy said.
Cassidy told Monarez and Deb Houry, the former chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at the CDC who also sat for testimony, that “the onus is upon you to prove that the criticisms leveled by the secretary are not true.”
Houry was one of four top CDC officials who resigned in protest after Monarez was ousted. The high-profile departures raised alarm over Kennedy’s vaccine policy agenda, which the public health officials said they were being asked to endorse without adequate science.
“How did Dr. Monarez go from being a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials, who had the full confidence of Secretary Kennedy into being a liar and untrustworthy in less than a month. That is quite a transformation. Well, I think the answer is fairly obvious. Dr. Monarez was fired because she refused to act as a rubber stamp to implement Secretary Kennedy’s dangerous agenda to substantially limit the use of safe and effective vaccines that would endanger the lives of the American people and people throughout the world,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said on Wednesday.
Kennedy stood by the recent shakeups at CDC, saying they were “absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency with a central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease.”
Monarez on Wednesday expressed concern on Kennedy’s changes to HHS, including his replacement of all members on the CDC vaccine advisory committee.
The CDC advisory committee is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss vaccine recommendations more broadly, including the measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) vaccine, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
“Based on what I observed during my tenure, there is real risk that recommendations could be made restricting access to vaccines for children and others in need without rigorous scientific review. With no permanent CDC director in place, those recommendations could be adopted,” Monarez said.
According to Monarez, Kennedy told her the childhood vaccine schedule would be changing in September and “I needed to be on board with it.”
“To be clear, he said there was not science or data, but that he still expected you to change the schedule?” Sen. Cassidy asked.
“Correct,” Monarez said.
HHS officials pushed back against Monarez’s testimony Wednesday, saying it contained “factual inaccuracies and left out important details.”
In a statement, a spokesperson also accused her of acting “maliciously to undermine the President’s agenda,” alleging that she limited badge access for Trump’s political appointees and removed one of Kennedy’s appointees without telling anyone.
ABC News has asked for more details about the specific allegations.
