Democrats have claimed that Ramos was "kidnapped" as his father was being detained in Minneapolis. Columbia Heights school district superintendent Zena Stenvik said Ramos was "used as bait." Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., as well as other Democrats, shared an image of a 5-year-old boy online and claimed he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while coming home from pre-school, DHS officials said officers were approaching Conejo Arias when he ran and left his son. Read more
A former school superintendent in Des Moines, Iowa, entered a guilty plea at a court hearing on Thursday, months after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for staying in the country illegally. Ian Roberts pleaded guilty to falsely claiming U.S. citizenship for employment and being an illegal immigrant in possession of firearms.
57 HOUSE REPUBLICANS JOIN DEMOCRATS TO KEEP FEDERAL AUTHORITY TO SHUT OFF YOUR CAR Lawmakers failed to remove a mandate requiring automakers to install remote "kill switches" in new vehicles, giving the government the ability to disable cars at will.
During an appearance on Fox Business, Trump commented, "We've never needed them. They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan. ... and they did. They stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines." But some of Trump's European critics are pointing out that when he was young during the 1960s and 1970s, he avoided military service. Scotland-based journalist/author Stephen Stewart, himself a veteran, argued, "Trump's comments are as offensive as they are inaccurate. It's hugely ironic that someone who allegedly dodged the draft for the Vietnam War should make such a disgraceful statement. He has desecrated the memory of hundreds of British soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, people who we called friends and comrades. If he was a man of honor, he would get down on bended knees to ask forgiveness from the families of the fallen."
Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators are meeting in Abu Dhabi today for the first trilateral talks since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 - here's what we know
T The last day of July 2025 was D-day for Florida's local governments. That was when the state's new Department of Government Efficiency, modeled on Elon Musk's federal DOGE, began descending on city halls and county administrative offices to audit spending as part of Governor Ron DeSantis's drive for "transparency and accountability in government." His administration dispatched two teams of fiscal specialists from Tallahassee"including experts from the Departments of Revenue, Financial Services, and Education"in what he called a "boots-on-the-ground" effort to rein in local government spending. To justify the campaign, DeSantis argued that, with Florida's growing prosperity, local governments were using revenue from rising tax receipts, especially property levies, to go on a "spending spree." The state DOGE's purpose, he said, was to find out what elected officials were doing with all that new money
This Week in Freudenfreude: She's Got a Ticket to Ride (And She Don't Care)
This Week in Schadenfreude: The President's Ratings Aren't What They Once Were
US Congress Useless
A man accused of putting a bounty on the life of Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was found not guilty Thursday. A verdict was reached just before 4 p.m. The jury of six men and six women got the case about 12:45 p.m. Thursday. Closing arguments took up all of the morning. The government was unable to provide any evidence to corroborate an alleged murder-for-hire plot. According to the statute, a person commits murder for hire if they take a substantial step toward committing the crime. That substantial step must be an act that strongly corroborates that the defendant intended to carry it out.
In November 2020, a freak wave appeared, lifting a lone buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters (58 feet) high.
Pope Leo is among world leaders invited to join Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" according to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vaticans top diplomatic official.
Leo, the first U.S. pope and a critic of some of Trump's policies, is evaluating the invitation, he said. Read more
Police have ruled a Florida man's actions self-defense after he shot a felon who allegedly attempted to abduct his wife. According to Fox News affiliate WTVT-TV, citing the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, Nicholas Palomo, a 36-year-old felon who had previously gone to prison for kidnapping and other crimes, attempted to abduct a woman who was walking her dog in Bradenton, Florida, on New Year's Day. The woman managed to run away from Palomo's car and warned her husband, who went outside to confront Palomo.
President Volodymyr Zelensky says trilateral talks on ending the war in Ukraine are to take place with Russia and the US in the United Arab Emirates, after he met President Donald Trump in Davos. "It's all about the land. This is the issue which is not solved yet," Zelensky told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - adding that trilateral talks might provide the two sides with "variants".
France says it has seized an oil tanker in the Mediterranean suspected of being part of Russia's sanction-busting "shadow fleet". French President Emmanuel Macron said the tanker, named the Grinch, was "subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag". Read more
A Minnesota federal magistrate judge refused to sign a complaint charging independent journalist Don Lemon in connection with a protest inside a church in St. Paul on Sunday, multiple sources familiar with the proceedings told CBS News. "The attorney general is enraged at the magistrate's decision," said a source familiar with the matter. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been in Minnesota for two days, as the Justice Department has sought to surge prosecutorial and law enforcement resources there.
