Kenya protesters, government-backed counter-demonstrators clash during anti-police brutality demos
A demonstration over the death of blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody turned violent Tuesday with police in riot gear facing protesters in downtown Nairobi, Kenya. Demonstrators said 'goons' sent by the government to disrupt the peaceful protests were collaborating with the police to unleash violence in the East African capital. (AP video/Josephat Kasire and Jackson Njehia)
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
US updates: Trump admin slashes jobs at Voice of America
US President Donald Trump's administration lays off 639 employees at Voice of America and its parent organization, the US Agency for Global Media Trump says US doesn't need to meet 5% defense spending target ahead of NATO summit Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil released after more than 3 months in custody Below is a roundup the latest developments in the US on Saturday June 21, 2025: Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who played a role in the Columbia University protests against Israel's war in Gaza, has been released from federal immigration jail in Louisiana. He spent 104 days in US custody. "Justice prevailed, but it's very long overdue," he said outside the facility. "This shouldn't have taken three months." Khalil was born in Syria and holds Algerian citizenship. He is not a US national but is a permanent resident. US District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release earlier on Friday. Farbiarz said the US government made no attempt to rebut evidence from Khalil's attorneys that he is not a flight risk nor a danger to the public. The Trump administration has targeted Khalil, saying he played a role in antisemitic protests. Khalil's legal team have argued that he is not antisemtitic or anti-US. The Trump administration had detained Khalil on foreign policy grounds, but Fabiarz had earlier ruled that the foreign policy reasons did not justify his detention. Khalil's green card will be returned to him, and he is permitted to limited travel within the US. At the same time, the Trump administration is still attempting to deport Khalil based on allegations that he lied to obtain his green card. This means that Khalil's legal battle to stay in the US is still not over. Khalil is married to US citizen Noor Abdalla, who gave birth to their son while he was in immigration detention. Abdalla celebrated Khalil's release in a statement: "We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others." "But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family." The latest cuts to VOA were met with fierce criticism from employees of the outlet and congressional Democrats. VOA employees Jessica Jerreat, Kate Neeper and Patsy Widakuswara are involved in a legal battle against Trump's cuts to the news outlet and US-funded public media. Jerreat, Neeper and Widakuswara were among those laid off on Friday. "It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world," Jerreat, Neeper and Widakuswara said in a statement in response to the latest cuts. In a post on X, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire strongly condemned the cuts. Jeanne Shaheen is the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shaheen said the "decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of hte law and congressional intent." "It is a dark day for the truth," Shaheen said. The Trump administration on Friday laid off 639 employees at US public broadcaster Voice of America (VoA) and its parent organization, the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). VoA was established in World War II and aims much of its programming at countries under authoritarian regimes such as North Korea and Iran. Kari Lake, a former television anchor and Trump ally who serves as the senior advisor to the USAGM, said the cuts are part of a "long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy." Some 1,400 people have been fired at VoA and USAGM since March, Lake said. Many VOA staff have been on administrative leave since March 15 amid legal proceedings. Trump has attacked publicly-funded news outlets such as VoA and National Public Radio (NPR), claiming without concrete evidence that their programming is biased toward conservatives. Welcome to DW's coverage of current affairs in the US and the second term of President Donald Trump. In addition to the latest news on the US, this blog will also bring you multimedia content, analysis and on-the-ground reporting from DW correspondents. Stay tuned for more!
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Vance blames California Dems for violent immigration protests and calls Sen. Alex Padilla 'Jose'
LOS ANGELES — Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers. Vance also referred to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, the state's first Latino senator, as 'Jose Padilla,' a week after the Democrat was forcibly taken to the ground by officers and handcuffed after speaking out during a Los Angeles news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on immigration raids . 'I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question,' Vance said, in an apparent reference to the altercation at Noem's event. 'I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't a theater. And that's all it is.' 'They want to be able to go back to their far-left groups and to say, 'Look, me, I stood up against border enforcement. I stood up against Donald Trump,'' Vance added. A spokesperson for Padilla, Tess Oswald, noted in a social media post that Padilla and Vance were formerly colleagues in the Senate and said that Vance should know better. 'He should be more focused on demilitarizing our city than taking cheap shots,' Oswald said. Vance's visit to Los Angeles to tour a multiagency Federal Joint Operations Center and a mobile command center came as demonstrations calmed down in the city and a curfew was lifted this week. That followed over a week of sometimes-violent clashes between protesters and police and outbreaks of vandalism and looting that followed immigration raids across Southern California. Trump's dispatching of his top emissary to Los Angeles at a time of turmoil surrounding the Israel-Iran war and the U.S.'s future role in it signals the political importance Trump places on his hard-line immigration policies. Vance echoed the president's harsh rhetoric toward California Democrats as he sought to blame them for the protests in the city. 'Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that this is open season on federal law enforcement,' Vance said after he toured federal immigration enforcement offices. 'What happened here was a tragedy,' Vance added. 'You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job. That is disgraceful. And it is why the president has responded so forcefully.' Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement, 'The Vice President's claim is categorically false. The governor has consistently condemned violence and has made his stance clear.' In a statement on X, Newsom responded to Vance's reference to 'Jose Padilla,' saying the comment was no accident. Jose Padilla also is the name of a convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter during President George W. Bush's administration, who was sentenced to two decades in prison. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport during the tense months after the 9/11 attacks and accused of the 'dirty bomb' mission. It later emerged through U.S. interrogation of other al-Qaida suspects that the 'mission' was only a sketchy idea, and those claims never surfaced in the South Florida terrorism case. Responding to the outrage, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said of the vice president: 'He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.' Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfill Trump's promise of mass deportations. Todd Lyons, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement , has defended his tactics against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed. The friction in Los Angeles began June 6, when federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps in the region that have continued since. Amid the protests and over the objections of state and local officials, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the second-largest U.S. city, home to 3.8 million people. Trump has said that without the military's involvement, Los Angeles 'would be a crime scene like we haven't seen in years.' Newsom has depicted the military intervention as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation's democracy. Earlier Friday, Newsom urged Vance to visit victims of the deadly January wildfires while in Southern California and talk with Trump, who earlier this week suggested his feud with the governor might influence his consideration of $40 billion in federal wildfire aid for California. 'I hope we get that back on track,' Newsom wrote on X. 'We are counting on you, Mr. Vice President.' Vance did not mention either request during his appearance on Friday. ___ Associated Press writers Julie Watson and Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Tran Nguyen in Sacramento contributed to this report.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
JD Vance rails against Newsom, LA mayor for declaring ‘open season on federal law enforcement'
Speaking in Los Angeles Friday, Vice President JD Vance criticized California state and local politicians, especially Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, for "endangering" federal law enforcement and effectively declaring "open season on federal law enforcement." Vance said he was "shocked" to hear that "far-left agitators" have been posting the names, addresses and even family members of federal law enforcement officials in Los Angeles to harass, antagonize and threaten their lives. "Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have got to stop this craziness," Vance said. "Every single law enforcement officer I talked to today, every single one of them, said they feel like the local leadership — the mayor and the governor — are encouraging these far-left agitators. What is the justification for this?" Vance said he has been told by law enforcement officials in the area that "when they go out, let's say you have a Border Patrol official who needs to go out and arrest somebody, maybe a violent criminal who's also an illegal alien. When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes of them trying to do their job, they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters, who are in their face obstructing them, preventing them from doing their job and endangering their lives. "Why do they have that?" he added. "Because those people have been egged on by local officials. Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that it is open season on federal law enforcement." Newsom has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's use of the National Guard and Marines to help local police quell the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, calling it both illegal and immoral. The governor launched a lawsuit against the federal government to stop the use of the military in response to the riots. Though a district court ruled in Newsom's favor, the 9th Circuit Court ruled Thursday to allow the Trump administration to continue using the military to assist local officials. "They have treated Border Patrol and border enforcement as somehow an illegitimate force instead of what they are, which is the American people's law enforcement trying to enforce the American people's laws," Vance said. "So, when Gavin Newsom encourages violence and rioting, he encourages people to get in the face of our great Border Patrol officers, he is absolutely endangering the lives of federal enforcement." Commenting on the 9th Circuit's ruling, Vance said, "It's interesting that, for the past couple of weeks, Gavin Newsom has said that there's an illegitimate effort to send federal resources to secure a city that he refuses to secure, and what the 9th Circuit said yesterday is that that was a completely legitimate and proper use of federal law enforcement. "The president has a very simple proposal to everybody, in every city, every community, every town, whether big or small. If you enforce your own laws and if you protect federal law enforcement, we're not going to send in the National Guard because it's unnecessary," he said. "But if you let violent rioters burn great American cities to the ground, then, of course, we're going to send federal law enforcement in to protect the people the president was elected to protect. "What I see here today is the great tragedy when a mayor and a governor encourage their citizens to harass and endanger the lives of our police officers and our law enforcement officers," he said. "It's heartbreaking to see, and thank God we've got great people who are willing to persevere despite it."
