Latest from Miami Herald
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
CBP agents discover 3,000-foot underground tunnel
June 20 (UPI) -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have discovered and closed a tunnel carved into the ground between San Diego and Tijuana that stretched more than 1,000 feet into the United States, the agency announced Thursday. The agency said the tunnel, located near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, had an exit point near a commercial warehouse. The tunnel entrance was discovered in a residential area in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, and had been concealed with freshly laid tile, CBP said. "The investigation revealed the tunnel was equipped with electrical wiring, lighting, ventilation systems and a track system designed for transporting large quantities of contraband," a CBP release said. The tunnel stretched nearly 3,000 feet, spanning the United States and Mexico border and measured nearly 4 feet high and more than 2 feet wide. It is the latest in a long series of tunnel discoveries in the Southwest. Drug and human smugglers have used clandestine, underground tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border for decades and routinely use them to move drugs and people into the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has discovered more than 95 tunnels in the San Diego area alone since 1993. They are also routinely discovered in other border states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. "Contractors will pour thousands of gallons of concrete into the tunnel, preventing the tunnel from use by Foreign Terrorist Organizations," the release continued. Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Appeals court halts ruling forcing Trump to return CA Guard to Newsom's control
A federal appeals court late Thursday temporarily blocked a judge's order that required President Donald Trump to relinquish control of California's National Guard, pausing a sweeping rebuke of the administration's decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay of the lower court's ruling, which had found Trump's use of National Guard and Marine personnel after federal immigration raids violated both statutory limits and the 10th Amendment. The stay will remain in effect at least through a scheduled hearing next week. Hours before, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had given the Trump administration until noon Friday to relinquish control of the Guard, a rare and sweeping judicial repudiation of the administration's unprecedented use of military personnel to support deportation operations amid immigration protests in the south state. 'The court must determine whether the president followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions,' Breyer wrote in a 36-page decision granting Newsom's request for a temporary restraining order. 'He did not.' 'His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States,' Breyer added. Breyer, who expressed skepticism during oral arguments earlier in the day, concluded the Trump administration had failed to prove 'a violent, armed, organized, open and avowed uprising against the government as a whole.' 'The definition of rebellion is unmet,' Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote. Attorneys for the White House immediately requested an emergency stay at the appellate level, which was granted by the three-judge panel. Circuit Judges Mark J. Bennett, Eric D. Miller and Lucy H. Koh ordered the halt and set a hearing for Tuesday. Bennett and Miller were appointed by Trump during his first term; Koh was elevated to the 9th Circuit by Biden in 2022. The legal back-and-forth set the stage for a high-stakes clash over executive power and states' rights, with Newsom casting the ruling as a pivotal moment for democratic accountability. 'Today's order makes clear that (Trump) is not above or beyond constitutional constraints,' Newsom said moments after the District Court's ruling from Los Angeles, 'Constitution sets forth limits; the president is a constitutional officer. The President of the United States works under the Constitution. And so we are very gratified by this decision. ... Clearly, there's no invasion, there's no rebellion. It's absurd. And so we're gratified. Today is a big day for the Constitution of the United States, for our democracy. And I hope it's the beginning of a new day in this country where we push back against overreach.' Newsom also addressed the potential of an appellate hold. 'I'm confident in the rule of law. I'm confident in the Constitution of the United States. I'm confident in the wisdom and judgment of a very well-respected federal judge. And I'm confident, on the basis of the review of the 36 pages – absolutely it will stand,' he said. Trump thanked the panel for its decision, saying in a social media post, 'The Appeals Court ruled last night that I can use the National Guard to keep our cities, in this case Los Angeles, safe. If I didn't send the Military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now. We saved L.A.' Breyer's ruling on Thursday came after a heated hearing in federal court, at which lawyers for Newsom argued that the deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles during protests over immigration raids was unlawful — a claim strongly disputed by White House attorneys. The hearing was part of a lawsuit filed by Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday against Trump's move to deploy the Guard and Marines to the nation's second-largest city without the governor's approval. 'It is not the federal government's place in our constitutional system to take over a state's police power whenever it is dissatisfied with how vigorously or quickly the state is enforcing its own laws,' Breyer wrote. Although Breyer said in his ruling that the deployment of the Marines to Los Angeles also was in conflict with the 10th Amendment, he did not order Trump to remove them in part because they were not in L.A. but training in Orange County. The hearing took place against a backdrop of ongoing tensions in Los Angeles, where Trump has deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines, a move that legal experts said was highly unusual and based on laws that could be interpreted in different ways. Protests began on Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed a local Home Depot store, arresting day laborers, and raided businesses in the city's largely immigrant garment district. The city has been under a nightly curfew since Tuesday night, when Mayor Karen Bass said it was necessary to stop vandalism and looting. On Thursday, Alex Padilla, one of California's two U.S. Senators, was forcibly removed from a press conference given by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, forced to kneel and then lie on the ground before being handcuffed. Newsom has blamed Trump for fanning the protests and violence, saying both the immigration raids and the activation of troops were deliberately provocative in a city where a third of the residents are immigrants. On Tuesday, he filed the request for a temporary restraining order, asking the judge to immediately limit the military's activities to support roles: protecting federal property and personnel. Newsom said in a court filing on Thursday that troops had moved beyond those allowable duties to actively assist ICE agents in making arrests, in violation of a federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, which is designed to prevent the military from being used as a domestic police force. At the hearing on Thursday, Breyer questioned the Trump administration's lawyers sharply on whether the president had followed the law when taking over control of the Guard over Newsom's objections. In particular, he asked Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate about a clause in the law that says orders to federalize the National Guard 'shall' come through the governors of the states. He also pressed the administration on its claim that even if Trump had not adhered to conditions laid out in the law for federalizing the National Guard, the courts don't have the jurisdiction to overturn his decision because the president has the discretion to interpret those conditions in his own way. He appeared to show some sympathy to Newsom's point of view when he asked California Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Green to address the question of Trump's discretion. 'That's the difference between a constitutional government and King George,' Breyer said, referring to the British monarch against whom the American Revolution was fought. 'It's not that a leader can simply say something and it becomes' the truth. But he questioned Green about Newsom's argument that the court had jurisdiction over what he called speculative concerns about how Trump might use the Marines, which are already under federal control. Much of the discussion at the hearing revolved around the law invoked by Trump when he activated the military in Los Angeles, which limits his power to do so unless there is an invasion, a rebellion, or the president is unable to enforce the laws of the United States. In documents submitted to the court this week, the president's lawyers argued that such conditions did exist in Los Angeles, making the deployments legal. Moreover, they argued that the federal government was following the law by limiting such military intervention to protection of federal property and personnel. But in his claim, Newsom alleges that Trump broke laws against the domestic deployment of military troops without consent from the state's governor. Newsom said he did not approve of the deployment and did not request it. He pointed to a clause in the law that says orders to deploy the National Guard by the federal government must be made through the governors of the states. Trump's lawyers argued for a different interpretation of the statute, saying it required the order to go through the governor or a representative, but not be made by the governor, court documents show. In this case, they argued, the order went through a top commander at the California National Guard, who responded to the president's directive. Breyer disagreed, saying in his ruling that California officials and 'the citizens of Los Angeles face a greater harm from the continued unlawful militarization of their city, which not only inflames tensions with protesters, threatening increased hostilities and loss of life.' In his ruling, the judge harshly criticized the White House for attempting to justify the Guard deployment after the fact. Breyer warned that 'the federal executive could unilaterally exercise military force in a domestic context and then be allowed to backfill justifications for doing so' — a precedent he labeled dangerous. Ultimately, the judge found Trump's takeover of the Guard violated the 10th Amendment by undermining state sovereignty. The court said Trump lacked both legal justification and procedural authority, rejecting the idea that immigration protests amounted to a 'rebellion' and calling the deployment an illegal federal overreach. 'To put a finer point on it,' Breyer wrote, 'the federal government cannot be permitted to exceed its bounds and in doing so create the very emergency conditions that it then relies on to justify federal intervention.' In a court filing, Newsom and Bonta criticized the appellate stay as 'unnecessary and unwarranted,' citing what they called Breyer's 'extensive reasoning' and his conclusion that California faced irreparable harm without immediate relief. They also questioned the timing of Tuesday's appellate hearing, noting it falls just before Breyer's hearing the following Friday on a preliminary injunction. A White House spokesperson told the Associated Press on Friday that Trump acted within his powers and that the original injunction 'puts our brave federal officials in danger. The district court has no authority to usurp the President's authority as Commander in Chief.'
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Adorable kitten saved from California car engine. ‘Not the kind of purr you want'
A tiny kitten was discovered in a very unpleasant — not to mention dangerous — spot in a California parking lot. Luckily for her, some humans came to the rescue. 'That's not the kind of purr you want to hear under your vehicle's hood,' the Alameda Police Department said in a June 18 Facebook post. That's right, the little one managed to get inside the engine of a car. 'Last week, Animal Control Officers responded to a call for service in the OfficeMax parking lot for the report of a kitten stuck in the engine of a car,' the department continued. 'With a little patience and some purrr-suading, they were able to safely coax out the kitten. She was then taken to a local vet, treated for fleas, and given a well-deserved meal. She is now resting comfortably with the Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter.' The department warned that animals may go on a hunt for shelter depending on the weather and advised people to always check their vehicles when the weather shifts. Temperatures were in the high 50s and low 60s the week the kitten was found, according to AccuWeather. 'As temperatures drop or rise, animals may seek warmth or shelter under cars. Give your hood a few firm taps or honk your horn before starting the engine. The noise may startle the animal and alert you to their presence,' police said. Alameda is in the Oakland area.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
See nearly 3,000-foot-long drug tunnel found beneath US-Mexico border, feds say
An unfinished tunnel for 'large-scale narcotics smuggling' from Tijuana to San Diego under the U.S.-Mexico border has been uncovered, federal officials reported. The 'highly sophisticated' tunnel extended more than 1,000 feet into the United States, spanning 2,918 feet total, the U.S. Border Patrol said in a June 18 news release. Agents discovered the tunnel in April while it was still under construction beneath the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, the agency said. The tunnel appeared to be intended to end in or near a nearby commercial warehouse, agents said. 'The investigation revealed the tunnel was equipped with electrical wiring, lighting, ventilation systems, and a track system designed for transporting large quantities of contraband,' agents said in the release. On Monday, June 16, agents and Mexican authorities traced the other end of the tunnel to a house in Tijuana, where they found the entrance had been 'concealed by freshly laid tile.' The tunnel was 42 inches high and 28 inches wide, agents said. It ran as deep as 50 feet below ground. Contractors will pour concrete into the tunnel to seal it off, the agency said. More than 95 tunnels have been uncovered in the San Diego area since 1993, agents said.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- General
- Miami Herald
Turtle on runway causes plane crash that leaves two dead in NC, officials say
Two people are dead and one is seriously injured after a small private plane crashed in North Carolina, avoiding a reptile on the runway on June 3, a report said. According to an aviation investigation preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the cause of the plane crash was the pilot attempting to avoid a turtle on the runway at Sugar Valley Airport in Mocksville. A UNICOM operator spotted the turtle and warned a pilot who had landed on the runway. The pilot then lifted the right main wheel to avoid hitting the reptile, the report said. 'The UNICOM operator stated that she heard the pilot advance the throttle after he raised the right wheel,' the NTSB report said. 'The airplane left her point of view, and she was unable to see the airplane after that.' A witness said the wings of the plane 'began to rock back and forth' before it took to the air again. The witness lost sight of the plane after it dipped behind the hanger and over the trees, where it vanished, the report said. The witness then 'heard a loud crash and saw smoke.' The NTSB said the plane was discovered more than 250 feet from the end of the runway. 'The airplane was wedged between several trees and remained in one piece except for a few pieces of fabric that were found in an adjacent stream next to the accident site,' the report said. 'The fabric on the fuselage, cowling, and wings was completely burned off and the airplane frame was visible.' The pilot and a passenger were killed, and another passenger was severely injured, per the report. The identities of the individuals who died have not been publicly released. Mocksville is about a 60-mile drive northeast from Charlotte.
