Above and below: AP photographers cover all angles at the World Aquatics
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Reuters
36 minutes ago
- Reuters
US appeals court keeps bar on Los Angeles federal immigration arrests
Aug 2 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court late on Friday affirmed a lower court's decision temporarily barring U.S. government agents from making immigration-related arrests in Los Angeles without probable cause. Rejecting the Trump administration's request to pause the lower court's order, the three-judge appeals panel ruled that the plaintiffs would likely be able to prove that federal agents had carried out arrests based on peoples' appearance, language and where they lived or worked. President Donald Trump called National Guard troops and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles in June in response to protests against the immigration raids, marking an extraordinary use of military force to support civilian police operations within the United States. The city of Los Angeles and other Southern California municipalities joined a lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union accusing federal agents of using unlawful police tactics such as racial profiling to meet immigration arrest quotas set by the administration. A California judge last month blocked the Trump administration from racially profiling immigrants as it seeks deportation targets and from denying immigrants' right to access to lawyers during their detention. In Friday's unsigned decision, the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit largely rejected the administration's appeal of the temporary restraining order. The judges agreed with the lower court in blocking federal officials from detaining people based solely on "apparent race or ethnicity," speaking Spanish or accented English, or being at locations such as a "bus stop, car wash, tow yard, day laborer pick up site, agricultural site, etc." The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the order a victory for the city. "The Temporary Restraining Order that has been protecting our communities from immigration agents using racial profiling and other illegal tactics when conducting their cruel and aggressive enforcement raids and sweeps will remain in place for now," she said in a statement. Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, welcomed the ruling in statement: "This decision is further confirmation that the administration's paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region."
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN: 'Naked man hides in sunbed after trying to burn down gym'
From naked alleged arsonists to robot rabbits, your round-up of this week's bonkers news from across the Pond Donald Trump has once again proven he is the most mathematically illiterate US president to ever walk the face of the earth. In a rambling speech, the US leader rattled off a series of impossible promises that would make even a calculator give up and walk off the job. 'We will have reduced drug prices by 1,000%, by 1,100%, 1,200%, 1,300%, 1,400%, 700%, 600%,' Trump proudly announced, as if counting backwards from reality. 'Not 30% or 40% or 50%. But numbers the likes of which you've never even dreamed of.' He's not wrong, because no one with a functioning brain has ever dreamed of prices dropping more than 100%, unless the plan is for pharmacies to start paying customers to take pills. Critics were quick to point out that the math defies every economic principle short of science fiction. But in Trump's world, facts are fake news and maths is just another Deep State conspiracy. *** Florida deputies were called to a Planet Fitness gym in San Carlos Park after a naked man allegedly tried to burn the place down. Henry Antunez-Alvarado, 25, had reportedly been asked to leave at closing time but instead he stripped down, ran amok, and attempted a bizarre blend of yoga, parkour and arson. Security footage shows him streaking through multiple rooms, climbing into the ceiling like a raccoon, and eventually hiding - still stark naked - inside a tanning bed. Deputies charged him with indecent exposure, arson, criminal mischief, and giving false ID. Planet Fitness is famous for promoting a 'Judgement-Free Zone', but this might be pushing it. *** It's happy hour by mistake. High Noon has issued a voluntary recall after some of its vodka seltzer cans were accidentally labelled as energy drinks. The mix-up, affecting packs shipped between July 21 and 23, has officials worried that unsuspecting gym-goers could chug a cocktail instead of a caffeine boost. *** Officials at a South Carolina nuclear facility got more than a sting when they discovered a wasp nest emitting 100,000 disintegrations per minute - a moderately high level of radiation. The Department of Energy report says the glowing hive was found near a tank at the Savannah River Site and is considered 'legacy contamination', meaning it's haunted by radiation past, not present. So no, the wasps didn't break into the reactor... but they are now officially more dangerous than your average garden nuisance. *** In a move straight out of a sci-fi wildlife documentary, University of Florida researchers have unleashed 40 solar-powered, remote-controlled robot bunnies into South Florida. Stuffed with heaters and motors instead of fluff, these fake marsh rabbits are designed to mimic the favourite snack of Burmese pythons, the massive invasive snakes that have turned the Everglades into their personal buffet since slithering in via the exotic pet trade. They hope the robot rabbits will help catch some of the serpents to stop them from breeding. *** Sometimes sharing a famous name isn't all it's cracked up to be. Geoffrey Epstein is running for mayor of Framingham, Massachusetts and no, not that Epstein. Despite being very much alive and not a disgraced financier, Geoff still gets flooded with online comments like 'show us the list'. One internet geek even posted his campaign flyer asking, 'Is this guy for real?' Supporters were quick to defend him: 'He's got good ideas about the city's finances,' said one. Just, maybe skip the name tags.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Colombia's ex-president Álvaro Uribe sentenced to 12 years' house arrest for witness tampering
Colombia's still-powerful former president Álvaro Uribe has been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest, capping a long and contentious career that defined the country's politics for a generation. Uribe, aged 73, received the maximum possible sentence after being found guilty of witness tampering, a legal source told AFP. The lengthy house arrest, which is due to be publicly announced on Friday, marks the first time in Colombia's history that a former president has been convicted of a crime and sentenced. Uribe led Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and helmed a relentless military campaign against drug cartels and the Farc guerrilla army. He remains popular in Colombia, despite being accused by critics of working with armed rightwing paramilitaries to destroy leftist rebel groups. And he still wields considerable power over conservative politics in Colombia, playing kingmaker in the selection of new party leaders. He was found guilty of asking rightwing paramilitaries to lie about their alleged links to him. A judge on Monday found him guilty on two charges: interfering with witnesses and 'procedural fraud'. Uribe insists he is innocent and said he would appeal the ruling. A law-and-order hardliner, Uribe was a close ally of the United States and retains ties to the American right. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, earlier decried Uribe's prosecution, claiming, without providing evidence, that it represented 'the weaponization of Colombia's judicial branch by radical judges'. Recent opinion polls revealed Uribe to be the South American country's best-loved politician. In 2019, thousands protested in Medellín and the capital, Bogotá, when he was first indicted in the case. On Monday, a smaller group of followers gathered outside the court wearing masks fashioned after his image and chanting: 'Uribe, innocent!' The investigation against Uribe began in 2018 and has had numerous twists and turns, with several attorneys general seeking to close the case. It gained new impetus under the current attorney general, Luz Camargo, picked by the current president, Gustavo Petro – himself a former guerrilla and a political arch-foe of Uribe. More than 90 witnesses testified in the trial, which opened in May 2024. During the trial, prosecutors produced evidence of at least one ex-paramilitary fighter who said he was contacted by Uribe to change his story. The former president is also under investigation in other matters. He has testified before prosecutors in a preliminary investigation into a 1997 paramilitary massacre of farmers when he was governor of the western Antioquia department. A complaint has also been filed against him in Argentina, where universal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of crimes committed anywhere in the world. That complaint stems from Uribe's alleged involvement in the more than 6,000 executions and forced disappearances of civilians by the Colombian military when he was president. Uribe insists his trial is a product of 'political vengeance'.
