Russia claims more advances after Ukraine ground offensive
Russia’s defense ministry said its troops had ‘liberated’ five border villages in the Kharkiv region
The Kharkiv region has been mostly under Ukrainian control since September 2022
Updated 11 May 2024
AFP
UKRAINE: Russia on Saturday said it had captured six villages in Ukraine’s east after launching a surprise ground offensive that prompted mass evacuations.
The defense ministry said its troops had “liberated” five villages in the Kharkiv region near the border with Russia — Borisivka, Ogirtseve, Pletenivka, Pylna and Strilecha — “as a result of offensive actions.”
The village of Keramik in the Donetsk region was also now under Russian control, it said.
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces made small advances in the area it was pushed back from nearly two years ago, the latest in a series of gains as Ukrainian forces find themselves outgunned and outmanned.
“A total of 1,775 people have been evacuated,” Kharkiv governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media.
He reported Russian artillery and mortar attacks on 30 settlements over the past 24 hours.
Groups of people could be seen coming in vans and cars with as many bags as they could carry at an evacuation arrival point outside the city of Kharkiv.
Evacuees — many of them elderly — registered and received food and medical assistance in makeshift tents.
“We must disrupt Russian offensive operations and return the initiative to Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.
Ukrainska Pravda quoted military sources saying the Russian assault had resumed on Saturday near the village of Glyboke in Kharkiv.
The report could not be independently verified.
The Kharkiv region has been mostly under Ukrainian control since September 2022.
A senior Ukrainian military source said on Friday that Russian forces had advanced one kilometer into Ukraine and were trying to “create a buffer zone” in the Kharkiv and neighboring Sumy regions to prevent attacks on Russian territory.
Ukrainian forces have multiplied attacks inside Russia and Russian-held areas of Ukraine, particularly on energy infrastructure.
Moscow-installed authorities in the Russian-occupied Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine said four people were killed by a Ukrainian strike with US-made missiles on an oil depot in Rovenky.
Governor Leonid Pasechnik said the strike “enveloped the oil depot in fire and damaged surrounding homes.”
In Russia, two people were reported killed by Ukrainian strikes in the Belgorod and Kursk regions.
Ukrainian officials also reported a total of six civilians killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions over the past day.
Officials in Kyiv had warned for weeks that Moscow might try to attack its northeastern border regions, pressing its advantage as Ukraine struggles with delays in Western aid and manpower shortages.
Ukraine’s military said it had deployed more troops and Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were using artillery and drones to thwart the Russian advance.
“Reserve units have been deployed to strengthen the defense in this area of the front,” it said.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said on Friday that Russia had made “tactically significant gains.”
But the main aim of the operation was “drawing Ukrainian manpower and material from other critical sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine,” it said.
ISW said it did not appear to be “a large-scale sweeping offensive operation to envelop, encircle and seize Kharkiv” — Ukraine’s second biggest city.
Washington announced a new $400 million military aid package for Kyiv hours after the offensive began, and said it was confident Ukraine could repel any fresh Russian campaign.
Frank Caprio, Rhode Island judge who drew a huge online audience with his compassion, dies at 88
His official social media accounts said Tuesday he passed away peacefully after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer
Caprio billed his courtroom as a place where people and cases are met with kindness and compassion
Updated 5 sec ago
AP
PROVIDENCE: Frank Caprio, a retired municipal judge in Rhode Island who found online fame as a caring jurist and host of ” Caught in Providence,” has died. He was 88. His official social media accounts said Wednesday that he “passed away peacefully” after “a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.” Caprio billed his courtroom as a place “where people and cases are met with kindness and compassion.” He was known for dismissing tickets or showing kindness even when he handed out justice. Last week, Caprio posted a short video on Facebook about how he had “a setback,” was back in the hospital and was asking that people “remember me in your prayers.” Caprio’s show was filmed in his courtroom and featured his folksy humor and compassion. Clips from the show have had more than 1 billion views on social media. During his time on the bench, Caprio developed a persona at odds with many TV judges — more sympathetic and less confrontational and judgmental. In his bite-sized segments on YouTube, Caprio is often seen empathizing with those in his courtroom. Many of the infractions are also relatively minor, from failing to use a turn signal to a citation for a loud party. Caprio also used his fame to address issues like unequal access to the judicial system. “The phrase, ‘With liberty and justice for all’ represents the idea that justice should be accessible to everyone. However it is not,” Caprio said in one video. “Almost 90 percent of low-income Americans are forced to battle civil issues like health care, unjust evictions, veterans benefits and, yes, even traffic violations, alone.” Caprio’s upbeat take on the job of a judge drew him millions of views. His most popular videos have been those where he calls children to the bench to help pass judgment on their parents. One shows him listening sympathetically to a woman whose son was killed and then dismissing her tickets and fines of $400. In another clip, after dismissing a red-light violation for a bartender who was making $3.84 per hour, Caprio urged those watching the video not to duck out on their bills. “If anyone’s watching I want them to know you better not eat and run because you’re going to get caught and the poor people who are working hard all day for three bucks an hour are going to have to pay your bill,” he said. His fame reached as far as China, where clips of his show have been uploaded to social media in recent years. Some fans there posted about his death, recalling and praising the humanity he showed in his rulings. His family described Caprio “as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend.” “Beloved for his compassion, humility, and unwavering belief in the goodness of people, Judge Caprio touched the lives of millions through his work in the courtroom and beyond,” the family wrote online. “His warmth, humor, and kindness left an indelible mark on all who knew him.” State and local politicians mourned his passing and celebrated his life. “Judge Caprio not only served the public well, but he connected with them in a meaningful way, and people could not help but respond to his warmth and compassion,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “He was more than a jurist — he was a symbol of empathy on the bench, showing us what is possible when justice is tempered with humanity.” Robert Leonard, who co-owned a restaurant with Caprio, said he was “going to be sorely missed” and was “all around wonderful.” “There is nothing he wouldn’t do for you if he could do it,” Leonard said. Caprio retired from Providence Municipal Court in 2023 after nearly four decades on the bench. According to his biography, Caprio came from humble beginnings, the second of three boys growing up in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. “I hope that people will take away that the institutions of government can function very well by exercising kindness, fairness, and compassion in their deliberations. We live in a very contentious society,” he said in 2017. “I would hope that people will see that we can dispense justice without being oppressive.”
Obama applauds Newsom’s California redistricting plan as ‘responsible’ as Texas GOP pushes new maps
According to organizers, the event raised $2 million for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates, one of which has filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn districts
Updated 21 August 2025
AP
Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections.
“I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this doesn’t go into effect.”
While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,” Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”
According to organizers, the event raised $2 million for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates, one of which has filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn districts. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder, who served as Obama’s attorney general and heads up the group, also appeared.
The former president’s comments come as Texas lawmakers return to Austin this week, renewing a heated debate over a new congressional map creating five new potential GOP seats. The plan is the result of prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives. Texas Democratic lawmakers delayed a vote for 15 days by leaving the state in protest, depriving the House of enough members to do business.
Spurred on by the Texas situation, Democratic governors including Newsom have pondered ways to possibly strengthen their party’s position by way of redrawing US House district lines, five years out from the Census count that typically leads into such procedures.
In California — where voters in 2010 gave the power to draw congressional maps to an independent commission, with the goal of making the process less partisan — Democrats have unveiled a proposal that could give that state’s dominant political party an additional five US House seats in a bid to win the fight to control of Congress next year. If approved by voters in November, the blueprint could nearly erase Republican House members in the nation’s most populous state, with Democrats intending to win the party 48 of its 52 US House seats, up from 43.
A hearing over that measure devolved into a shouting match Tuesday as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats, and a committee voted along party lines to advance the new congressional map. California Democrats do not need any Republican votes to move ahead, and legislators are expected to approve a proposed congressional map and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required voter approval.
Newsom and Democratic leaders say they’ll ask voters to approve their new maps only for the next few elections, returning map-drawing power to the commission following the 2030 census — and only if a Republican state moves forward with new maps. Obama applauded that temporary timeline.
“And we’re going to do it in a temporary basis because we’re keeping our eye on where we want to be long term,” Obama said, referencing Newsom’s take on the California plan. “I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.”
Trump slashing intelligence office workforce and cutting budget by over $700 million
Intel chief Tulsi Gabbard says ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power
Among those affected are the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which is meant to track influence operations from abroad and threats to elections
Security clearances of 37 current and former government officials revoked
Updated 21 August 2025
AP
WASHINGTON: The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.
The move amounts to a major downsizing of the office responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence, as President Donald Trump has tangled with assessments from the intelligence community.
His administration also this week has revoked the security clearances of dozens of former and current officials, while last month declassifying documents meant to call into question long-settled judgments about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement announcing a more than 40 percent workforce reduction.
She added: “Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US national intelligence, speaks with reporters at the White House on July 23, 2025. (AP/File)
Division tackling foreign influence is targeted
Among the changes are to the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which is meant to track influence operations from abroad and threats to elections. Officials said it has become “redundant” and that its core functions would be integrated into other parts of the government.
The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded given Trump’s long-running resistance to the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.
In February, for instance, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target US elections. The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems. And the State Department in April said it shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Republicans cheer the downsizing, and Democrats pan it
Reaction to the news broke along partisan lines in Congress, where Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the decision as “an important step toward returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission. And it will help make it a stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump.”
The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, pledged to carefully review Gabbard’s proposals and “conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security.” He said he was not confident that would be the case “given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence.”
Gabbard’s efforts to downsize the agency she leads is in keeping with the cost-cutting mandate the administration has employed since its earliest days, when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency oversaw mass layoffs of the federal workforce.
It’s the latest headline-making move by an official who just a few month ago had seemed out of favor with Trump over her analysis of Iran’s nuclear capabilities but who in recent weeks has emerged as a key loyalist with her latest actions. Changes to efforts to combat foreign election influence
The Foreign Malign Influence Center was created by the Biden administration in 2022 to respond to what the US intelligence community had assessed as attempts by Russia and other adversaries to interfere with American elections.
Its role, ODNI said when it announced the center’s creation, was to coordinate and integrate intelligence pertaining to malign influence. The office in the past has joined forces with other federal agencies to debunk and alert the public to foreign disinformation intended to influence US voters.
For example, it was involved in an effort to raise awareness about a Russian video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
Gabbard said Wednesday she would be refocusing the center’s priorities, asserting it had a “hyper-focus” on work tied to elections and that it was “used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.” Its core functions, she said, will be merged into other operations.
The center is set to sunset at the end of 2028, but Gabbard is terminating it “in all but name,” said Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks foreign disinformation.
Though Gabbard said in a fact sheet that the center’s job was redundant because other agencies already monitor foreign influence efforts targeting Americans, Brooking refuted that characterization and said the task of parsing intelligence assessments across the government and notifying decision-makers was “both important and extremely boring.”
“It wasn’t redundant, it was supposed to solve for redundancy,” he said.
Security clearances of 37 officials revoked
On Tuesday, the Trump administration said that it was revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants from the federal government’s intelligence community.
A memo from Gabbard accused the singled-out individuals of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan goals, failing to safeguard classified information, failing to “adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards” and other unspecified “detrimental” conduct.
The memo did not offer evidence to back up the accusations.
Many of the officials who were targeted left the government years ago after serving in both senior national security positions and lower-profile roles far from the public eye. Some worked on matters that have long infuriated Trump, like the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf. And several signaled their concerns about Trump by signing a critical letter in 2019 that was highlighted on social media last month by right-wing provocateur and close Trump ally Laura Loomer.
The action is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to wield the levers of government against perceived adversaries, and reflects the president’s continued distrust of career intelligence officials he has long seen as working against his interests. The revocation of clearances has emerged as a go-to tactic for the administration, a strategy critics say risks chilling dissenting voices from an intelligence community accustomed to drawing on a range of viewpoints before formulating an assessment.
“These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,” Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.
He called it hypocritical for the administration to “claim these individuals politicized or weaponized intelligence.”
Gabbard on Tuesday sought to defend the move, which she said had been directed by Trump.
“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” she wrote on X. “Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.”
The security clearance suspension comes amid a broader effort by Gabbard and other Trump administration officials to revisit the intelligence community assessment published in 2017 on Russian election interference, including by declassifying a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of its findings.
Trump has also revoked the clearances of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and he attempted to do the same for lawyers at a spate of prominent law firms but was rebuffed by federal judges.
Some of those who were targeted in the latest action were part of Biden’s national security team. Many only learned of the Gabbard action from news reports Tuesday, said two former government officials who were on the list. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity as they ponder whether to take legal action.
Texas Republicans approve Trump-backed congressional map to protect party’s majority
The map, which will have to be reconciled with the state Senate’s version, has triggered a national redistricting war, with governors of both parties threatening to initiate similar efforts in other states
Updated 21 August 2025
Reuters
Texas legislators on Wednesday passed a new state congressional map drawn at the behest of President Donald Trump to flip five Democratic-held US House seats in next year’s midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked passage.
Republican legislators, who have dominated Texas politics for over two decades, have undertaken a rare mid-decade redistricting to help Trump improve their party’s odds of preserving its narrow US House of Representatives majority amid political headwinds. The map, which will have to be reconciled with the state Senate’s version, has triggered a national redistricting war, with governors of both parties threatening to initiate similar efforts in other states. Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom is advancing an effort to redraw his state’s map to flip five Republican seats. Democratic-controlled California is the nation’s most populous state while Republican-led Texas is the second most populous. The Texas map would shift conservative voters into districts currently held by Democrats and combine some districts that Democrats hold.
Other Republican states — including Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri — are moving forward with or considering their own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic states such as Maryland and Illinois.
Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years after the US Census to account for population changes, and mid-decade redistricting has historically been unusual. Whenever the maps are drawn, in many states, lawmakers manipulate the lines to favor their party over the opposition, a practice known as gerrymandering.
Texas Democrats on Wednesday raised multiple objections to and questions about the measure.
Representative John Bucy, a Democrat, said from the House floor before passage of the bill that the new maps were clearly intended to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino and Asian voters, and that his Republican colleagues bending to the will of Trump was deeply worrying.
“This is not democracy, this is authoritarianism in real time,” Bucy said. “This is Donald Trump’s map. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows the voters are rejecting his agenda.”
Republicans argued the map was created to improve political performance and would increase majority Hispanic districts.
Bucy was among the Democrats who fled the state earlier this month to deny the Texas House a quorum. In response, Republicans undertook extraordinary measures to try to force the Democrats home, including filing lawsuits to remove them from office and issuing arrest warrants. The walkout ended when Democrats voluntarily returned on Monday, saying they had accomplished their goals of blocking a vote during a first special legislative session and persuading Democrats in other states to take retaliatory steps. Republican House leadership assigned state law enforcement officers to monitor Democrats to ensure they would not leave the state again. One Democratic representative, Nicole Collier, slept in the Capitol building on Monday night rather than accept a police escort.
Republicans, including Trump, have openly acknowledged that the new map is aimed at increasing their political power. The party currently controls 25 of the state’s 38 districts under a Republican-drawn map that was passed four years ago.
Democrats and civil rights groups have said the new map dilutes the voting power of racial minorities in violation of federal law and have vowed to sue.
Nationally, Republicans captured the 435-seat US House in 2024 by only three seats. The party of the president historically loses House seats in the first midterm election, and Trump’s approval ratings have sagged since he took office in January.
Top White House officials turn to public appearances with troops as a tense Washington watches
Vance told the troops assembled in the Union Station Shake Shack that “you guys are doing a helluva job” and “we brought some law and order back”
Updated 21 August 2025
AP
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement crackdown on Washington expanded Wednesday and top administration officials visited National Guard troops to support a deployment that has left parts of the US capital looking like occupied territory. Anger and frustration dotted the city as the vice president lauded an operation that he asserted has “brought some law and order back.”
The tense situation, which began more than a week ago when Trump took control of the local police department, appeared primed for escalating confrontations between residents who say they feel under siege and federal forces carrying out the president’s vision of militarized law enforcement in Democratic cities. Other residents have said they welcome the federal efforts as a way to cut crime and bolster safety.
As Trump ratcheted up the pressure, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared burgers with soldiers at the city’s main railroad hub as demonstrators gathered nearby. The appearance, a striking scene that also included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, illustrated the Republican administration’s intense dedication to an initiative that has polarized the Democratic-led city.
Vance told the troops assembled in the Union Station Shake Shack that “you guys are doing a helluva job” and “we brought some law and order back.” While protest chants echoed through the restaurant, he rejected polling that shows city residents don’t support the National Guard deployment as a solution to crime.
Someone booed Vance loudly and repeatedly as he left. The vice president grinned and said, “This is the guy who thinks people don’t deserve law and order in their own community.”
Trump has already suggested replicating his approach to D.C. in other cities, such as Chicago and Baltimore. He previously deployed the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests. Swaths of the city are on edge
In the seven months since Trump took office for the second time, the traditionally liberal city of Washington has buckled under his more aggressive presidency. Thousands of federal employees have been laid off, landmark institutions like the Smithsonian are being overhauled on grounds of doctrine, and local leaders have been increasingly wary of angering the commander-in-chief.
Now parts of the city are bristling with resentment over Trump’s approach. Spectators chanted ” free D.C. ” at a soccer game. Residents share sightings of immigration agents to help migrants steer clear. In the Columbia Heights neighborhood, crowds jeered federal officers and flipped middle fingers as they drove away. On some nights, people bang pots and pans outside their front doors in a cacophonous display of defiance.
Less than a mile from the US Capitol, an armored National Guard vehicle collided with a civilian car in the early morning on Wednesday, trapping the driver inside until emergency crews arrived. The massive military transport, designed to withstand improvised explosive devices in war zones, towered over the crushed silver sport utility vehicle. Bystanders gathered.
“You come to our city and this is what you do? Seriously?” a woman yelled at the troops in a video posted online.
More troops have been arriving in the city, many from six Republican-led states. An estimated 1,900 are being deployed in total, with most posted in downtown areas like the National Mall, metro stations and near the park where baseball’s Washington Nationals play.
In addition, federal officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies have circulated through D.C. to make arrests.
Col. Larry Doane, the commander of the joint task force in the D.C. National Guard, said they’re trying to provide “an extra set of eyes and ears” for police and “helping them maintain control of the situation.”
“This is our community, too,” Doane said.
That’s not how D.C. native LaVerne Smalls, 46, feels. “It’s very different. It’s very quiet,” she said. “And I don’t like it. It should be full of life.”
Smalls knows D.C. has struggled with crime, but she didn’t used to feel worried walking around. “I feel even more threatened,” she said. “And I think that’s how they want us to feel.”
The actions from law enforcement have occasionally veered beyond safety and crime reduction and into regulating expression. Over the weekend, masked agents took down a profane protest banner in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood — to the apparent delight of the administration, which posted a video of the incident online. “We’re taking America back, baby,” one of the agents said in the video.
Corey Frayer, 42, who lives nearby, said “that sends a message.”
“Mt. Pleasant has always been a very activist, outspoken neighborhood,” he said. “And I think they think if they can show up here and scare us, then they’ll have done their job.” Arrests are increasing as local officials navigate the situation
The White House said more than 550 people have been arrested so far, and the US Marshals are offering $500 rewards for information leading to additional arrests. “Together, we will make DC safe again!” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media. City statistics show crime was already declining before Trump’s intervention, despite his claims of a crisis necessitating the federal takeover of the D.C. police department.
The number of people arrested each day in Washington has increased by about 20 percent since the government began sending in a surge of federal agents, according to law enforcement data.
On average, there were 78 people booked in the city jail in the first 10 days, compared to 64 in the 10 days before that. Those numbers don’t include immigration arrests, though they do include arrests by both local police and federal officers, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss data that has not been publicly released.
Policing experts say it’s tough to draw firm conclusions over such a short period of time, especially since increases in police presence can relocate crime instead of preventing it.
Extending federal control of the city police department would require congressional approval, but Vance suggested the decision ultimately rests with Trump. “If the president of the United States thinks that he has to extend this order to ensure that people have access to public safety, that’s exactly what he’ll do,” he said.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged the militarized backdrop in the city as she attended a back-to-school event with teachers and staff. She said it’s important that children “have joy when they approach this school year,” which starts on Monday.
Those early overtures didn’t stop Trump’s executive order or his increasingly disparaging rhetoric about the city’s leadership. Bowser has been measured but directly critical of the federal operation, saying officers should not be wearing masks and arguing that the National Guard should not be used for law enforcement. “I don’t think you should have an armed militia in the nation’s capital,” she said.
Meanwhile, the skewer-everyone cartoon television show ” South Park,” which has leaned into near-real-time satire in recent years, this week made the federal crackdown fodder for a new episode. This year, the show’s 27th-season premiere mocked the president’s body in a raunchy manner and depicted him sharing a bed with Satan.
