Grand Canyon University, largest for-profit college, fined $37.7 million - NBC News

The U.S. Education Department is fining Grand Canyon University $37.7 million, saying the for-profit Christian school misrepresented the costs of its doctoral programs.

The agency says Grand Canyon University told students that enrolling in the doctoral program would cost $40,000 to $49,000. That was supposed to cover tuition and 60 credit hours. However, the department says, 98% of doctoral students needed more than 60 credit hours to graduate.

From 2017 to 2022, the Education Department said, 78% of Grand Canyon students who graduated with doctorates needed five or six three-credit courses. That cost another $10,000 to $12,000, and sometimes more.

"Almost no students are able to complete their doctoral program within the represented number of credits," the department said.

In many cases, students could not get federal financial aid for those additional courses.

The Education Department disclosed the fine in a letter to university President Brian Mueller dated Tuesday.

The Phoenix-based college is the country’s largest for-profit college by enrollment, with more than 100,000 students, most of them online, and it received more than $1.1 billion in federal funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, primarily for its bachelor’s degree programs. That was more than any other participating school.

The Education Department says 7,547 students enrolled in its doctoral programs from Nov. 1, 2018, to Oct. 19, 2023. The government is fining the school $5,000 for its misrepresentations to each of those students.

The letter to Mueller says that in the few instances that Grand Canyon University did disclose that students might have to take additional courses to complete their doctorates, the disclosures were often incomplete or they were buried in fine print or in long documents, and that those rare disclosures did not address its other misrepresentations or explain the cost of the extra courses.

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Brother says heavily armed man found dead at Colorado amusement park 'wouldn't talk to any of us' - NBC News

CARBONDALE, Colo. — The man whose body was found in a Colorado amusement park with a semi-automatic rifle nearby and a handgun at his side was described by his older brother Tuesday as a recluse who stayed up every night playing video games.

Diego Barajas Medina, 20, whom the Garfield County Coroner's Office identified as the man whose body was found in a women’s restroom before Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park opened Saturday, “was a quiet person,” his brother, David Barajas Medina, 27, said in an exclusive interview. “He wouldn’t talk to any of us.”

The brothers lived with their mother in a two-bedroom apartment in Carbondale, about 14 miles south of the amusement park. David and Diego shared a room.

“He always wanted to be a police officer, so he had guns,” David said. “He had a vest.”

Under Diego's bed was a box that, David said, may have stored the firearms authorities found, weapons the local sheriff said are most likely illegal, and unregistered and untraceable ghost guns that can be made at home with kits and 3D printers. David said he was at a loss for what was going on in his brother's mind.

“I didn’t think he was a dangerous person," he said.

Man had no connection to the park

Authorities were trying to assess why Diego would go to the park before business hours carrying a rifle, described as looking like an AR-15; a handgun, believed to have been used to end his life; and explosives. He wore dark clothing in the style of police tactical officers, authorities said.

"He was highly prepared and highly weaponized but chose ultimately to kill himself," Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said Monday at a news conference.

For a nation still recovering from last week's mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 people were killed by a man said to have a similar semi-automatic rifle, the news of Diego's death at a venue for families and children has been unnerving. Colorado has a long history of mass shootings dating to 1999 at Columbine High School.

The amusement park, which is at an altitude of 7,100 feet, has a capacity of 1,551 people, according to Garfield County documents. It is in Glenwood Springs, a city of around 10,000 in the Rocky Mountains 120 miles west of Denver. Alongside thrill rides, the amusement park provides tours of caves beneath Iron Mountain.

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park said in a statement that the venue is surrounded by state land and that the man had trespassed.

Sheriff’s spokesperson Walt Stowe said Tuesday, "He was able to drive his vehicle up a back road that is used by the park for maintenance traffic only."

He described it as a dirt road "with little or no maintenance."

It was not clear Tuesday how Diego knew about the road. David said his brother had no connection to the park.

'I'm not sure what he was setting out to do'

Investigators also found fake hand grenades near Diego's body, Vallario said Monday.

Diego wore a ballistic vest and a ballistic helmet and possessed multiple magazines of ammunition, authorities said. The patches and emblems on his dark clothing "gave the appearance of being associated with law enforcement," the sheriff's office said in a statement Monday.

Vallario said, "Whatever the intention, he did not follow through."

David said he believes Diego meant no harm. Diego left a phone in the room they shared, he said, and it seems clear to him that Diego wanted someone to find it. David is not sure what was in the phone, which was locked. Like the box, investigators took the phone, his brother said.

Diego lost his last job at Family Dollar about a year ago and was flipping items on Amazon to make ends meet, though he had not kept up with the rent, David said.

He may have been depressed, but Saturday's discovery was shocking, David said.

"I'm not sure what he was setting out to do," he said.

His described Diego as a nocturnal gamer: "He went to sleep every day at 6 a.m. He played Call of Duty every night.”

Even so, David said, "he seemed normal." And he described his death as "weird to me."

Stowe said the sheriff's office will conduct a "methodical and detailed" investigation to reveal the man’s background and possible motive, indicating it could take time and even then conclude speculatively.

On Monday, Vallario described Diego as "completely under the radar," adding, "There was nothing to indicate there was a warning or concern."

He imagined what could have been, saying Diego "could have done a tremendous amount of damage at the adventure park."

"It could have been devastating," he said.

Investigators found writing on a bathroom wall near the body. Its meaning, or even whether it was done by Diego's hand, remained unclear Tuesday.

Vallario said the writing stated, "I am not a killer, I just wanted to get into the caves."

Deon J. Hampton reported from Carbondale, Minyvonne Burke from Pittsburgh and Dennis Romero from San Diego.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

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Prosecutors say court decision forces the end of criminal cases in Flint water scandal - NPR

Enlarge this image

Then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder delivers his State of the State address at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Jan. 23, 2018. Al Goldis/AP

Al Goldis/AP

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan attorney general's office said Tuesday that the state prosecution of former Gov. Rick Snyder and other officials for their roles in the Flint water scandal has ended.

A decision Tuesday by the state Supreme Court to decline to hear appeals of a lower court's dismissal of misdemeanor charges against Snyder "effectively closes the door on the criminal prosecutions of the government officials," prosecutors said in a release.

"At this time the court has left us with no option but to consider the Flint water prosecutions closed," the prosecution team said.

The Michigan Supreme Court in September rejected a last-chance effort by prosecutors to revive criminal charges. The attorney general's office used an uncommon tool — a one-judge grand jury — to hear evidence and return indictments against nine people, including Snyder. But the Supreme Court last year said the process was unconstitutional, and it struck down the charges as invalid.

Snyder was charged with willful neglect of duty. The indictment against him also was dismissed, though the Supreme Court did not address an appeal by prosecutors in September only because that case was on a different timetable.

Snyder's attorney Brian Lennon told The Associated Press that Snyder and his family are "encouraged by what appears to be a declaration by AG (Dana) Nessel of the end of this political persecution of public officials."

Managers appointed by Snyder turned the Flint River into a source for Flint water in 2014, but the water wasn't treated to reduce its corrosive impact on old pipes. As a result, lead contaminated the system for 18 months. Some experts have attributed a fatal Legionnaires' disease outbreak in 2014-15 to the water switch.

Flint was reconnected to a regional water system in 2015 and has been compliant with lead standards for seven years, regulators said.

Snyder, a Republican, acknowledged that state government botched the water switch, especially regulators who didn't require certain treatments. But his lawyers deny his conduct rose to the level of a crime.

"Our disappointment in the Michigan Supreme Court is exceeded only by our sorrow for the people of Flint," the prosecution team said.

The prosecution team said Tuesday that it expects next year to release "a full and thorough report" detailing its efforts and decisions.

Separately, the state agreed to pay $600 million as part of a $626 million settlement with residents and property owners who were harmed by lead-tainted water. Most of the money is going to children.

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Judge temporarily blocks federal officials from removing razor wire set up by Texas to deter border crossings - CBS News

Washington — A federal judge on Monday temporarily barred the Biden administration and Border Patrol agents from removing the razor wire Texas state officials have set up to hinder the entry of migrants along the border with Mexico, with limited exceptions, such as medical emergencies.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge Alia Moses blocked federal officials from removing, scrapping, disassembling or encumbering concertina wire that Texas state authorities assembled near the border town of Eagle Pass to impede the passage of migrants entering the country illegally. Moses said federal officials could only remove the wire to "provide or obtain emergency medical aid."

The order is an early legal victory for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas officials in their latest lawsuit against the Biden administration, which has found itself defending most of its major immigration policies from lawsuits filed by officials in the Lone Star state and other GOP-led states. The ruling, however, will not be the final say on the matter.

The Texas lawsuit

Immigrants cross over razor wire after crossing from Mexico into the U.S. on Sept. 28, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Getty Images

When it filed its lawsuit last week, Texas said Border Patrol agents were cutting its razor wire to facilitate the entry of migrants into the U.S. In a statement after the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said federal agents were seen three days later "escalating their efforts to destroy Texas's border barriers, using heavy machinery such as forklifts to uproot large sections of fencing to facilitate mass entry." That prompted his request for the restraining order that was approved Monday.

"By acting quickly and monitoring their actions closely, we were able to secure a restraining order, and I am confident we will continue to prevail," Paxton said in a statement.

Moses' temporary restraining order will last for two weeks, through Nov. 13. She scheduled a hearing on the case for Nov. 7.

Administration officials have said Border Patrol agents sometimes cut Texas' razor wire to provide medical assistance to migrants in distress and because they need to process migrants who have already set foot on U.S. soil. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the specifics in the case, but said Border Patrol agents "have a responsibility under federal law to take those who have crossed onto U.S. soil without authorization into custody for processing, as well as to act when there are conditions that put our workforce or migrants at risk." The department will "of course" comply with the order, the spokesperson said.

U.S. law requires federal immigration agents to process migrants to determine whether they should be deported, released, detained or transferred to another agency once they reach American soil, which is the middle of the Rio Grande in Texas' case.

A larger feud

The feud over the razor wire is the latest clash between the federal government and Abbott, which has accused President Biden, a Democrat, of not doing enough to deter illegal border crossings, which have reached record high levels over the past two years.

In fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, Border Patrol recorded over 2 million apprehensions of migrants along the Mexican border, federal data show. It was only the second time the agency has surpassed that threshold.

Along with deploying National Guard units to the southern border to set up razor wire and impede the entry of migrants, Texas has been arresting some migrants on state trespassing charges and busing thousands of asylum-seekers to Democratic-led cities like New York and Chicago, without notifying local authorities.

More

Camilo Montoya-Galvez

Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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Ben Crump calls for DOJ to investigate Dexter Wade’s death in Mississippi - NBC News

The lawyer representing a Mississippi mother whose adult son was run over by an off-duty police officer and was later buried in a pauper’s grave without her knowing will ask the Department of Justice to investigate why she wasn’t told what happened.

The lawyer, Ben Crump, also said in a news conference Monday that he will help arrange for Dexter Wade’s body to be exhumed from where he was buried on the grounds of the Hinds County penal farm, marked only by a number. Crump said he will then arrange for an independent autopsy before Wade is reburied in a cemetery with a headstone bearing his name.

Wade will be given “a proper funeral where his family and loved ones and his two little children and all the community can come out and give him a respectable homegoing service — one that apparently Jackson Police Department didn’t intend for him to have,” Crump said.

For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.

Wade’s mother, Bettersten Wade, said it was devastating to search for her missing son for months and beg the Jackson police for answers, only to learn that the department knew all along that he’d been killed the night she last saw him. The experience has made her question the police department’s ability to work for its residents.

“The system is supposed to work for me if I call you and say I need help,” Bettersten Wade, 65, said at Monday’s news conference. “I am a citizen here in Jackson. So I asked for help.”

Bettersten Wade searched months for her son, only to find out he was dead and buried in a pauper's grave.Imani Khayyam for NBC

NBC News first reported on what happened to Dexter Wade last week, sparking widespread public outrage. 

“It just doesn’t pass the smell test,” Crump said. “That’s why people all over America are talking about what happened to Dexter Wade in Jackson, Mississippi.” 

Crump and Bettersten Wade both accused the Jackson Police Department of having a vendetta against her family because of an earlier case.  

In 2019, Bettersten Wade’s 62-year-old brother died after a Jackson officer slammed him to the ground. A jury convicted the officer of manslaughter, and he is appealing.

Bettersten Wade’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in her brother’s death that accuses Jackson officers of excessive force and attempting to cover up their actions, and accuses the city of failing to properly train and supervise the officers. The city has denied the claims and said it isn’t liable for what happened. The officers’ lawyers said they acted responsibly and lawfully. A federal judge dismissed some of the family’s claims; others remain pending in state court. 

“We are asking for the Department of Justice to investigate this matter because the family does not have trust in the Mississippi officials,” Crump said. “Would you after this happened to your brother and child?”

A Department of Justice spokesperson said the agency was aware of the incident but did not comment further.

A city spokesperson said in a statement that “our thoughts and prayers remain with Dexter Wade’s family,” but the city cannot say anything more because the family is working with lawyers. 

Bettersten Wade last saw Dexter Wade, 37, on March 5, when he left their home with a friend. She reported him missing to the Jackson Police Department the following week. For months, she called missing persons investigators seeking information, and was told there was no news. She posted appeals on Facebook, searched abandoned houses and asked around her neighborhood.

She didn’t learn the truth until Aug. 24, when a Jackson accident investigator told her that her son, the father of two teenage girls, had died the night he left home, struck by a police cruiser while crossing a nearby highway. The accident investigator told her to call the Hinds County coroner’s office for more information.

A coroner’s office investigator told Bettersten Wade that he’d found no ID on her son but noticed his name on a bottle of prescription medication and was able to confirm that identification through fingerprints. The coroner’s investigator said he shared Dexter Wade’s name, and contact information for Bettersten Wade, with the accident investigations squad. He got no updates from police, and with no one coming forward to claim Dexter Wade’s body, the county buried him July 14 in a pauper’s field on the grounds of its penal farm. He remains there, at the end of a dirt road, his grave marked No. 672.

Dexter Wade was struck and killed by a police car on March 5.Imani Khayyam for NBC

Jackson’s police department has not commented on its handling of Dexter Wade’s death. But after NBC News reported the story, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba addressed the case Thursday during his annual State of the City speech.

Lumumba expressed regret and sympathy for Wade’s family, and blamed a communication failure that he said was due in part to police receiving an incorrect phone number for Bettersten Wade from the Hinds County coroner’s office. Lumumba said police meant no harm.

Bettersten Wade visits a memorial to her son, Dexter Wade, beside Interstate 55 where he was killed.Ashleigh Coleman for NBC News

The city has declined to say what phone number police were given. But coroner’s office reports and Dexter Wade’s hospital records both include a correct number for Bettersten Wade.

Whether the number was correct or not is almost beside the point, Bettersten Wade said, because the police also should have had her name and her address, and could have knocked on her door.

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Muslim pediatrician fatally stabbed outside her Texas apartment - NBC News

Dr. Talat Jehan Khan was fatally stabbed multiple times by a man who seemed to come out of nowhere while she was sitting at a picnic table outside her Texas apartment Saturday, said Conroe police.

At the time of the incident, several witnesses rushed to help Khan, a 52-year-old Pakistani-American and practicing Muslim who worked at Texas Children’s Pediatrics Conroe, and gave officers a description of the incident. She was pronounced dead on scene.

Police were dispatched just after 12:30 p.m. local time and arrested 24-year-old Miles Fridrich on charges of first-degree murder after a brief chase on foot.

Sergeant David Dickinson said Conroe police have not yet found evidence to support that the motive was linked to race or ethnicity but said they are in the process of combing through Fridrich’s social media and computers after obtaining search warrants.

Police and Khan’s family said that to their knowledge, she did not know Fridrich.

“So far, it’s appearing that this is completely random,” Dickinson said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Texas said the organization is in conversation with law enforcement about the murder.

“We are unsure at this moment if this was a hate crime, however given the tragic circumstances, we are paying very close attention to the investigation,” read CAIR’s statement.

Dr. Talat Jehan Khan was sitting at a picnic table outside her Texas apartment on Saturday when she was fatally stabbed multiple times by a man who seemed to come out of nowhere, said Conroe police. KPRC

Conroe police are still unsure of how Fridrich got into the Alys Apartments, the gated, luxury complex where Khan lived. Dickinson said that in many of the cases he has dealt with, gates do not work or criminals follow somebody else in.

Khan leaves behind a 14-year-old daughter, a 23-year-old son, and a reputation for being a kind, loving doctor.

“Her kids and her kids she looked after as a pediatrician were her entire life. Everything in her life revolved around those two things,” Wajahat Nyaz, Khan’s brother, told Houston NBC-affiliate KRPC.

Nyaz added that his sister moved to Conroe, Texas, in July from Seattle hoping for more sunshine and warm weather.

Dr. Talat Jehan Khan.via KPRC

Fridrich is currently in Montgomery County Jail and a judge set his bond at $500,000, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. Police said he has a prior criminal record involving traffic infractions, drug history, and the unlawful carrying of a firearm.

Masjid Al Ansaar, the Conroe mosque that Khan attended, hosted a prayer for her Sunday. The mosque's Assistant Director Mohammed Ayubi told KPRC that he spoke to Khan Friday.

“She was here, she talked to a whole bunch of people, excited. She was talking about her children, how her children were studying, growing up and how she was going to start looking for a house,” Ayubi said.

Masjid Al-Sahabah, another mosque in Conroe, expressed condolences for Khan's family. "It is essential for all of us to remain vigilant and prioritize our safety and the safety of our fellow community members," the house of worship said in a statement.

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As Ohio prepares to vote on Issue 1, anti-abortion forces struggle - The Washington Post

CINCINNATI — Students hoping to get others to vote “no” on an upcoming Ohio amendment to ensure abortion rights took the soft approach at a recent event at the University of Cincinnati.

The signs in their booth were alarmist — “Late-Term Abortion is on the Ballot” — but the young “Students for Life” advocates opted for a moderate appeal as they stopped students hurrying back and forth to class.

“We’re not voting necessarily today on whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice,” Kristin Drummond, 19, a medical science major from Kentucky, told one freshman who said she favored abortion rights. “This is about whether or not this amendment is something we should have, because it’s very extreme.”

Three months after a failed attempt by abortion opponents to make it harder to amend the state constitution, Ohioans will head to the polls again Nov. 7 to decide whether to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution. Early voting is already underway, television ads are proliferating and millions in political money is flowing into Ohio. The amendment’s backers have outraised the antiabortion side, but together they have spent more than $40 million on television advertising and other expenses so far, campaign records show.

Abortion is currently legal in Ohio up until 22 weeks. A six-week ban was briefly in place last year before being put on hold by a judge, but not before the number of abortions dropped and patients fled to other states for care — including a 10-year-old rape victim whose case caused a national uproar.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion standard last June, voters have sided with abortion rights advocates in six other states, even in conservative Kansas and Kentucky. Advocates in nine states are pushing for ballot campaigns next year and beyond. With the August vote already a sobering sign for opponents, a July poll from USA Today and Suffolk University found that 58 percent of Ohioans backed the proposed amendment, and 32 percent opposed.

Antiabortion forces here are trying to bring centrist voters into the fold, the so-called “mushy middle,” as Michael Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life, put it.

“We live in a diverse state, and one side overreached and the rest of Ohio has to respond,” said Gonidakis. “This ballot language is a bridge too far even for pro-choice Ohioans.”

Lauren Beene, a pediatrician who heads Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, counters that the opposition campaign is deliberately underplaying the reality of the six-week ban, which the state’s conservative Supreme Court could put back into effect.

“The anti-choice people are trying to pretend the six-week ban doesn’t exist and our governor didn’t sign it into law,” Beene said. If the abortion amendment fails and the six-week ban is upheld by the court, she said, “we’ll go back into that medical crisis period we all saw in 2022.”

The Nov. 7 amendment, known on the ballot as Issue 1, would if approved make it a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including abortion, contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care. It would allow the state to restrict abortion after fetal viability, except when “necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health” — which proponents say is a reasonable limit most Americans would agree with.

The August defeat spurred internal finger-pointing and recrimination within conservative camps; GOP leaders were accused of shying away from publicly supporting the controversial measure that drained money and support from the November ballot race.

In a press statement following the defeat, the conservative Susan B. Anthony List said that “the silence of the establishment and business community in Ohio left a vacuum too large to overcome … So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again.”

But some of the state’s Republican leaders had been vocal in their support, including its chief architect, Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaRose, a U.S. Senate hopeful.

Stephen Billy, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s vice president for state affairs, said leaders are now energized.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who is Catholic, has headlined a fundraiser and get-out-the-vote rally for the opposition, and appeared in a recent ad with his wife Fran urging “no” votes and warning the proposal is “not right for Ohio.” `

Opponents such as DeWine have said the amendment would endanger parental rights — a charge legal scholars dismiss. They have also argued that constitutional protection of a pregnant person’s “health” could be broadly interpreted by doctors and misused, allowing for abortion after viability of a fetus for nonmedical reasons. (Abortions occurring at or after 21 weeks gestational age are rare and represent 1% of all abortions in the United States, according to KFF, the health policy research organization.)

“Our job as we approach this is to try and articulate to people exactly what is in this constitutional amendment and to explain that if it becomes part of the constitution which means it overrides any law we currently have in place,” DeWine said in an interview.

Legal scholars say that parental rights have consistently been retained by the courts, with judges holding that even though minors can be viewed as “individuals,” adults can still intervene.

There is nothing in the amendment that indicates that, if it passes, “parental consent will not remain in place,” said Tracy Thomas, the Seiberling Chair for Constitutional Law and director of the University of Akron’s Center for Constitutional Law.

Some opponents have gone further, falsely alleging that the broad wording would open the door not just to minors seeking abortions but minors seeking gender reassignment surgeries without consent.

Mehek Cooke, the spokeswoman for the antiabortion group Protect Women Ohio, repeatedly referred to the transgender issue in a recent debate, even though the state’s Republican Attorney General, Dave Yost, said in a recent analysis that “it would certainly be too much to say that under Issue 1 all treatments for gender dysphoria would be mandated at the minor individual’s discretion and without parental involvement.”

Although Ohio, once a swing state, has grown more conservative in recent years, the end of federal protections for abortion galvanized even many Republicans, the amendment’s advocates say, making the effort to defeat it an uphill climb.

Republican Thera Parks, 51, an insurance saleswoman from Solon, volunteered this spring to collect signatures to get the abortion amendment on the ballot, working with Red Wine and Blue, an Ohio-founded group that seeks to engage “concerned but unconnected” suburban voters across the United States.

“When reproductive rights are banned, parents don’t have a choice or say over their kids or their families or even their own bodies,” Parks said. “A little girl had to leave Ohio to receive care. A thought of forcing young girls to stay pregnant and carry to term is just terrible to me.”

The controversial August proposal aimed at derailing amendments like November’s failed even in 15 counties that had voted for Trump, a Washington Post analysis showed.

Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, called the August defeat in Ohio a “five-alarm fire for the pro-life movement.”

“The victory we fought for fifty years is proving to be a lot harder than people thought,” he said. Brown said that the antiabortion movement needs to focus on working to ban elective abortions rather than fighting for extreme bans.

Abortion rights advocates will be victorious in “state after state, until we figure out a better way to talk about it and to reach out to voters in the middle,” Brown said. “Clearly what we’re doing isn’t working.”

He said antiabortion forces need to be willing to compromise and do a better job of “demonstrating credibility” in their support of pregnant patients and parents.

“A lot of people are saying our battle is won, Roe is defeated,” said Jason Yates, the CEO of My Faith Votes, Christian voter mobilization group, who was in Columbus for a March for Life recently. “The reality is, the fight goes to the states, and unfortunately people aren’t paying attention what’s being in passed in the states.”

DeWine has suggested that the legislature revisit the six-week ban he signed, which does not allow exceptions for pregnant patients who have been raped or who are the victims of incest.

He said his administration has worked to expand support for mothers and their infants, including a home visiting program and $5 million to community and faith-based programs to improve health outcomes.

At the University of Cincinnati event, students were largely respectful of one another’s opinions, stopping by the Students for Life booth to debate, read over the amendment wording on an iPad and register to vote.

“I feel like the state of America for a lot of people right now, they just like aren’t in the place to have a child or to be a parent,” Sasha Thornton, 18, a political science major from Cincinnati who favors abortion rights, told Drummond.

Jamie Curry, the energetic regional coordinator for Students for Life, stepped in.

“We never know what someone is going to face. We can’t end innocent human life just because someone may one day face a hardship,” she said. Curry then launched into a graphic description of a “late-term” abortion; Thornton agreed there should be some limits and rushed off to class, but said she still plans to vote for the amendment.

Curry, 23, who was raised Catholic, came to her advocacy in college, after she met a friend whose mother had been raped. As the vote approaches, Curry has crisscrossed the state, hosting campus events, organizing students to scribble chalk slogans on sidewalks and wielding a bullhorn to lead chants at rallies.

She said she does not believe that the loss in August presages a failure on Nov. 7. Roe’s end, she said, was just the beginning.

“We say it was a victory and we will take it but that was 100 percent not the end,” Curry said. But despite coaching the students under her to take a moderate view while out campaigning, she is not for legislative compromise.

“We still have a lot of work to be done. We will not stop fighting until abortion is inaccessible everywhere,” she said.

Emily Guskin and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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Thousands take to Brooklyn and Manhattan streets in pro-Palestinian rally - Gothamist

Thousands gathered for a pro-Palestinian rally in Brooklyn on Saturday, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

The protest moved through several neighborhoods and eventually across the Brooklyn Bridge, causing officials to close the bridge to traffic for more than two hours. Many protesters made their way to Union Square later in the evening.

Crowds began gathering for the protest, which was organized by Within Our Lifetime, in front of the Brooklyn Museum around 3 p.m. The crowd then marched through Downtown Brooklyn, heading past the Barclays Center on its way to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Within Our Lifetime's website describes the group as a Palestinian-led organization that has been involved in pro-Palestinian movements in New York City since 2015.

There was a large police presence near the bridge, the Barclays Center and along Eastern Parkway.

According to NotifyNYC, all lanes on the bridge were closed around 5:30 p.m. as the protest made its way across into Manhattan, and drivers were encouraged to take alternate routes. The bridge later reopened around 8 p.m., according to NotifyNYC, though drivers were advised to expect residual delays.

Xiomara Ossorio, 31, an artist from Flatbush, Brooklyn, was among the protesters in Union Square on Saturday night. She said she joined the protesters near the Barclays Center and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan with the crowd.

"I came to call for the end to this genocide," Ossorio said. "Our tax dollars are actively funding this."

"I came to condemn the use of U.S. tax dollars for this," she continued.

Arman Yasin, 20, a student at SUNY Oneonta who's originally from Poughkeepsie, came to the city to attend the protest alongside his mother, fiancée and sister-in-law.

"I wanted to be in the thick of it, I wanted to get involved," Yasin said, adding that he planned to attend another protest on Sunday.

"We need to raise our voice, because that's what we have," said Laiba Ahmed, Yasin's sister-in-law. "We have our voice and we need to use our voice to make sure that people from all around the world that this is wrong, and this needs to stop. This can't keep going on."

The protesters gathered in front of the Brooklyn Museum, then made their way through Downtown Brooklyn and into Lower Manhattan.

Megan Ryan/Gothamist

The NYPD has not reported any incidents or arrests so far.

The protest followed another pro-Palestinian demonstration at Grand Central Terminal on Friday, which resulted in the MTA closing the transit hub for nearly two hours.

The protest came as Israel ramped up bombardments and ground attacks in Gaza during its war with Hamas on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

This is an ongoing story and will be updated with new information as it is available.

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U.S. fighter jets intercept civilian aircraft near Biden's Delaware residence - POLITICO

President Joe Biden departs a fundraiser Pct. 27, 2023, in Washington before heading to Delaware for the weekend. | Susan Walsh/AP

U.S. fighter jets on Saturday “scrambled” to intercept a civilian aircraft north of President Joe Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del.

The civilian aircraft entered restricted airspace shortly after 2 p.m., according to Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service. The aircraft landed safely at a nearby airport.

“As a precaution, assets were scrambled to intercept and the civilian aircraft safely landed at a nearby airport. There were no impacts to the protectee’s movements as a result of this incident and agents from the United States Secret Service are investigating in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration,” Guglielmi said.

The president is in Wilmington this weekend, and his movements weren’t affected. He attended church Saturday evening after the incident.

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Mike Pence: Former US Vice President withdraws from 2024 presidential race - BBC.com

Caroline Brehman/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

By Antoinette Radford

BBC News

Former US Vice President Mike Pence has withdrawn from the 2024 presidential race, saying "this is not my time."

He made the announcement at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon.

"We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets", he wrote in a statement.

Mr Pence is the first major Republican candidate to suspend his campaign in a race led by former President Donald Trump.

Mr Pence had been trailing behind Mr Trump in the polls.

The former vice president's campaign has also racked up large amounts of debt, with Mr Pence ending September owing $621,000 (£512,038) and having only US$1.2m (£989,446) in the bank - significantly less than other Republican rivals.

"I am leaving this campaign, but I will never leave the fight for conservative values," he wrote in a statement addressed to his supporters.

The 64-year-old lost the support of many Republican voters when he publicly broke with Mr Trump over the 6 January Capitol riot in 2021, and when he presided over the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election results in Congress.

Mr Trump admonished Mr Pence for lacking "courage" when he refused to overturn the Democratic leader's election victory.

Some rioters were heard chanting "hang Mike Pence" as they stormed the halls of Congress in 2021, and since then many Trump loyalists have viewed him as a traitor.

The former vice-president said in March that Mr Trump's encouragement of the rioters had "endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day".

Read more:Who are the Republican hopefuls not named Trump?

In his resignation, Mr Pence did not endorse any other Republican candidates for the presidential election.

But he called on Americans to choose a leader that "will 'appeal to the better angels of our nature' and not only lead us to victory but also lead our nation with civility and back to those time-honoured principles that have always made America strong, prosperous and free."

Related Topics

• US election 2024
• Donald Trump
• Mike Pence
• United States

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New York Republican moves to expel George Santos from Congress - Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - A New York state Republican on Thursday made a privileged motion in the U.S. House of Representatives to expel indicted fellow Republican George Santos from Congress, a move that forces the chamber to hold a vote on the question.

The action was precipitated by the filing of 23 fresh federal criminal counts against the first-term U.S. congressman earlier this month, accusing him of inflating his campaign's fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors' credit cards without their consent.

"George Santos is not fit to serve his constituents as a United States representative," said Representative Anthony D'Esposito, who stood on the House floor flanked by fellow New York Republicans Nick LaLota, Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler.

Santos, who represents a district including parts of New York City and its eastern suburbs, has been enmeshed in scandal since his November 2022 election, first facing accusations that he fabricated much of his resume and then criminal indictment.

Santos pleaded not guilty to an initial May indictment and has said he will do the same for the new one. Free on $500,000 bail, he is due back in court on Friday for a status conference.

"Three points of clarification: 1. I have not cleared out my office. 2. I'm not resigning. 3. I'm entitled to due process and not a predetermined outcome as some are seeking. God bless!" Santos tweeted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, after D'Esposito's motion.

Under House rules, lawmakers must act on a privileged motion within two legislative days. The House is next expected to hold votes on Wednesday.

With a narrow 221-212 majority, the House's Republican leadership has not taken action against Santos.

Newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview on Fox News late on Thursday that Santos has a right to due process. "If we're going to expel people from Congress just because they're charged with a crime ... that's a problem," Johnson said.

Republican leaders could try to avoid an expulsion vote by moving to table the measure or refer it to a committee.

D'Esposito and his fellow New York Republicans announced plans to seek Santos' expulsion on Oct 11. But until Wednesday, the House had been shuttered for three weeks following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The charges against Santos include false statements, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud, accusing him of using the credit card information of people who had already donated to his campaign to make additional contributions.

"He has had plenty of time to do the right thing and resign," LaLota said in a statement. "The only logical step is to expel him from Congress."

In order to pass, the motion would require support from two-thirds of members in the House, meaning 290 votes. Democrats have repeatedly called for Santos to be expelled, and over a dozen Republicans have done the same.

Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christian Schmollinger

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Texas Lawmakers Vote to Let Local Police Arrest Migrants - The New York Times

The proposal, which has now cleared both houses of the Legislature, poses a direct challenge to the federal government’s authority over policing the borders.

In a direct challenge to federal power over immigration, the Texas House on Thursday approved the creation of a state-level crime for entering the country from Mexico between ports of entry, allowing local police agencies to arrest and jail unauthorized migrants or order them back to Mexico.

The legislation had been called for by Gov. Greg Abbott in what would be a sharp escalation of his multibillion-dollar border security program, known as Operation Lone Star. The Texas House also approved an additional $1.5 billion for the state to use to construct its own barriers near the international boundary.

The arrest measure now returns to the Senate, which has already approved its own version, and then head to Mr. Abbott’s desk for his signature.

“It is a humane, logical and efficient approach,” Representative David Spiller, a Republican from west of Fort Worth, said in introducing his arrest bill before the vote. “There is nothing unfair about ordering someone back from where they came if they arrived here illegally.”

Emotions ran high during hours of arguments and motions on the House floor that stretched through the night and into Thursday morning, with Democrats objecting to what they said would be a new criminal enforcement regime that could end up inadvertently targeting Hispanic Texans. At one point, tempers flared as Republicans moved to halt amendments to the bill.

“My community is being attacked,” one Latino representative, Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat, told his Republican colleagues. “Y’all don’t understand,” he said. “It hurts us personally.”

For more than two years, Mr. Abbott and Republican lawmakers have been testing the boundaries of the state’s power to enact its own aggressive law enforcement policies in response to the surging number of migrants crossing into the state from Mexico.

But the creation of a criminal offense under state law — empowering Texas officers to arrest migrants, including those seeking asylum — went a step further into a realm of immigration enforcement that is typically reserved to the federal government.

The legislative move is likely to set up a consequential court fight over immigration and, for opponents of President Biden’s immigration policies, create a chance to revisit a 2012 Supreme Court case, originating in Arizona, that was decided 5 to 3 in favor of the federal government’s primary role in setting immigration policy.

Gov. Greg Abbott, center, speaking during a news conference along the Rio Grande earlier this year. Mr. Abbott has said he would support what would be a sharp escalation of his multibillion-dollar border security program, known as Operation Lone Star.Eric Gay/Associated Press

“The core question is whether the states can make it a crime to violate federal immigration law, and detain an alien for violating that law,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, who has written that Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of the Arizona decision, left open the question of detentions.

Other legal experts saw the Supreme Court decision as clearly pre-empting state laws such as the one moving forward in Texas.

“What Texas is doing is taking up Arizona’s mantle,” said Daniel Morales, a professor of law at the University of Houston. “This is a complete relitigation of the issues that appeared and were settled in that case.”

While the federal government is responsible for the nation’s borders, border states have occasionally attempted to assert their own control, as Arizona did more than a decade ago, when faced with a large number of migrants in the state.

That state passed a law that, among other things, made it a state crime to be in the country without authorization and empowered police officers to arrest migrants believed to be deportable. The situation drew national attention, even before the legislation, in part because of a local sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who had been aggressively going after migrants in Maricopa County.

The Supreme Court struck down most of the Arizona law in 2012, finding that many of its main provisions, including those for state immigration crimes and arrests, either were pre-empted by federal law or conflicted with it.

The bill approved by the Texas House on Thursday appeared to go even further than the Arizona statute in authorizing local police officers to order migrants out of the country.

“It is unprecedented,” said Barbara Hines, the former director of the immigration clinic at the University of Texas Law School. She said she testified twice against the bill, telling lawmakers that it was unconstitutional.

“Texas can’t make Mexico take people that it has not agreed to take back,” said Gerald Neuman, a professor of law at Harvard University. He added that states are not recognized as having the power to order people to leave the country.

Still, state police officials in Texas have already discussed how they would use the new law to detain migrants caught crossing the Rio Grande, take them back to the international bridges and direct them to cross over into Mexico — or else be arrested and charged.

During a House committee hearing on the legislation, Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that large new jail facilities would not be needed to deal with a huge number of arrests if most people agreed to go back over the border. The more migrants taken to the bridges who are “willing to voluntarily go over, the better,” Mr. McCraw said.

Some legislators raised concern that arresting migrants for the state offense could have the effect of separating children from their parents, as occurred during the Trump administration when federal border agents strictly enforced the federal law barring unauthorized entry. Mr. McCraw said his state troopers would not conduct such arrests.

“We don’t want to separate the mother from the child,” Mr. McCraw said during the committee hearing.

The legislation does not provide exceptions for those arriving between the ports of entry who intend to make asylum claims to the federal government, an option that is enshrined in federal law. That could invite other legal challenges, constitutional law experts said.

“The asylum issue is a tricky one,” Mr. Blackman said. “It’s a problem.”

It was not clear how the legislation would affect the existing coordination between Texas law enforcement officers and the U.S. Border Patrol. A large number of migrants who cross into Texas seek to immediately turn themselves in to federal border agents in order to make asylum claims.

Until recently, if state officers encountered them first, the officers usually alerted U.S. agents and handed them over for federal processing.

But in recent months, Texas National Guard members and state police officers have taken a more aggressive approach toward migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande, laying down concertina wire along the riverbank and, in some cases, shouting at them to go back to Mexico.

And tensions have grown between state and federal officials over the state’s placement of buoys in the river and the concertina wire, which some federal border agents have cut in order to assist migrants struggling in the river. On Tuesday, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued the Biden administration over agents’ cutting of the wire, saying the practice damaged Texas property and harmed the state’s effort to deter migrant arrivals.

The new legislation authorizing arrests promises to up the ante even further.

“It will raise new tensions,” said Aron Thorn, a senior attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project.

The Texas House bill, known as H.B. 4, passed in the early hours of Thursday after Democrats repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to defeat or amend it.

While the legislation approved in the House differed in some details from a similar bill passed this month by the State Senate, both create the state-level offense, allowing for the arresting of migrants who cross between points of entry. A final version of the bill was expected to pass both chambers of the Legislature within a week.

Under the legislation, migrants believed to have crossed without authorization could be arrested even hundreds of miles from the border by local or state police officers.

“Not just D.P.S.,” Mr. Walle, the Houston lawmaker, said in a telephone interview before the debate, referring to the Texas Department of Public Safety. “Not just on the border. Now you’re going to tie up local law enforcement agencies all over the state.”

He added that “it puts fear into communities” that otherwise want to work with law enforcement.

State troopers have, since 2021, been arresting some migrants found on private land on charges of criminal trespassing as part of Operation Lone Star.

The arrests, which originally focused exclusively on men, have been challenged by immigration and civil rights groups. When the program started, the arrests overwhelmed local jails. The state has since dedicated space in certain state prisons to house migrants facing trespassing charges.

Many of those migrants have found themselves eventually deported, Mr. Thorn said, though some have spent months in jail after being arrested on the misdemeanor trespassing charges.

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