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Trump urges GOP flexibility on abortion restrictions for health care deal

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Trump urges GOP flexibility on abortion restrictions for health care deal

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants Republicans to reach a deal on health care insurance assistance by being willing to bend on a 50-year-old budget policy that bars federal money from being spent on abortion services.

“You have to be a little flexible” on the Hyde AmendmentTrump told House Republicans as they gathered in Washington for a caucus retreat to open the midterm election year. “You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something. You gotta use ingenuity.”

With his suggestion, Trump, who supported abortion rights before he entered politics in 2015, is asking conservatives to abandon or at least ease up on decades of Republican orthodoxy on abortion and spending policy — something lawmakers and conservatives pushed back on immediately.

At the same time, he is demonstrating his long-standing malleability on abortion and acknowledging that Democrats have the political upper hand on health care after Republicans, who control the White House, the Senate and the House, allowed the expiration of premium subsidies for people buying Affordable Care Act insurance policies. As negotiations on Capitol Hill continue on the matter, some Democrats are pushing to end the Hyde restrictions as part of any new agreements on health care subsidies.

Trump’s road map on the Hyde Amendment came more than an hour into a stem-winding speech intended as a part strategy session and part pep rally as Republicans attempt to maintain their threadbare House majority in the November midterms.

The president touted the GOP proposal to replace ACA subsidies — which taxpayers typically steer directly to insurance companies after selecting their policies — with direct payments that taxpayers could use for a range of health care expenses, including insurance. The expanded ACA subsidies expired on Dec. 31, 2025, hitting millions of policy holders with steep premium increases.

“Let the money go directly to the people,” Trump said, before casually slipping in a reference to the Hyde Amendment.

“We’re all big fans of everything,” he said. “But you have to have flexibility.”

Turning directly to GOP leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump added, “If you can do that, you’re going to have — this is going to be your issue.”

House Republicans did not visibly react to Trump’s argument. But Senate Republicans appeared unlikely to back off their demands that any new health care legislation maintain existing restrictions on government funding for abortion services.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated his stance Tuesday afternoon that any legislation must ensure “that those dollars aren’t being used to go against the practice that has been in place for the last 50 years.”

Beyond Capitol Hill, Trump drew swift condemnation from parts of the GOP coalition that want absolute opposition to any policy that might ease abortion restrictions.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said it would sour core conservative voters and make Republicans “sure to lose this November.”

“To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment,” she said in a statement. “The voters sent a GOP trifecta to Washington and they expect it to govern like one. Giving in to Democrat demands that our tax dollars are used to fund plans that cover abortion on demand until birth would be a massive betrayal.”

Even before Trump’s speech, activists were ramping up pressure on Republicans in their talks with Democrats.

At Americans United for Life, a leading advocacy group that opposes abortion rights, Gavin Oxley penned an op-ed this week for “Blue Light News” titled, “Republicans must hold the line: No Hyde Amendment, no deal on health care.”

“If they play their cards right,” Oxley wrote, “Republicans just might earn back enough of their base’s trust to sustain them through the 2026 midterms.”

The Hyde Amendment, named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde, originally applied to Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for poor and disabled Americans, and barred it from paying for abortions unless the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Hyde first introduced it in 1976, shortly after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide.

Over the years, Congress reauthorized Hyde policy as part of spending bills that fund the government. Democrats who support abortion access often joined Republicans who opposed abortion rights as a bipartisan compromise to pass larger spending deals. But as the two parties hardened their respective positions on abortion, Democrats became more uniform opponents of the ban, most famously when presidential candidate Joe Biden reversed his long-standing support for Hyde on his way to winning the 2020 Democratic nomination and general election.

Republicans have maintained their near-absolute support for the amendment.

The anti-abortion movement was initially skeptical of Trump as a presidential candidate in 2015 and 2016. But he has mostly aligned with the key faction of the Republican coalition, especially on Supreme Court appointments that led to the 2022 decision overturning Roe.

—- Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Stephen Groves contributed from Washington.

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The Dictatorship

City on edge after fatal shooting…

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City on edge after fatal shooting…

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As anger and outrage spilled out onto Minneapolis’ streets Thursday over the fatal shooting of a woman the day before by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, a new shooting by federal officers in Oregon left two people wounded and elicited more scrutiny of enforcement operations across the U.S.

Hundreds of people protesting the shooting of Renee Good marched in freezing rain at night down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now” and holding signs saying, “killer ice off our streets.” Protesters earlier vented their outrage outside a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the administration’s latest immigration crackdown on a major city.

The shooting in Portland, Oregon, took place outside a hospital in the afternoon. A man and woman were shot inside a vehicle, and their conditions were not immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating. Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed.

Just as it did following the Minneapolis shooting, the Department of Homeland Security defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying the incident occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It was not yet clear if witness video corroborates that account.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi NoemPresident Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

Vice President JD Vance said the shooting was justified and Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was a “victim of left-wing ideology.”

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it is a tragedy of her own making,” Vance said, noting that the officer who killed her was injured while making an arrest last June.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying video recordings show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

An immigration crackdown quickly turns deadly

The shooting happened on the second day of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part, and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

It provoked an immediate response in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of people turning up to the scene to vent their outrage at the ICE officers and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

Good’s death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests took place or were expected this week in many large U.S. cities.

“We should be horrified,” protester Shanta Hejmadi said. “We should be saddened that our government is waging war on our citizens.”

Protesters blocked the street where Good was shot with makeshift barricades constructed out of garbage cans, Christmas trees and canopies. People gave out coffee and water, while fires burned in metal drums to keep visitors warm.

Who will investigate?

The Minnesota agency that investigates officer-involved shootings said Thursday that it was informed that the FBI and U.S. Justice Department would not work with the it, effectively ending any role for the state to determine if crimes were committed. Noem said the state has no jurisdiction.

“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands,” said Drew Evans, head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Gov. Tim Walz demanded that the state be allowed to take part, repeatedly emphasizing that it would be “very difficult for Minnesotans” to accept that an investigation excluding the state could be fair.

Noem, he said, was “judge, jury and basically executioner” during her public comments.

Frey, the mayor, told The Associated Press: “We want to make sure that there is a check on this administration to ensure that this investigation is done for justice, not for the sake of a cover-up.”

Deadly encounter seen from multiple angles

Several bystanders captured video of Good’s killingwhich happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close rangejumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

Officer identified in records

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for almost two decades in the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle of a driver who was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. He was dragged roughly 100 yards (90 meters) before he was knocked free, records show.

He fired his Taser, but the prongs did not incapacitate the driver, according to prosecutors. Ross was transported to a hospital.

A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin also did not confirm his identity but said the officer involved in the shooting was selected for ICE’s special response team, which includes a 30-hour tryout and additional training.

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Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

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Driver shot in Minneapolis is at least the fifth person killed in US immigration crackdown

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Driver shot in Minneapolis is at least the fifth person killed in US immigration crackdown

The fatal shooting Wednesday of a woman by an immigration officer in Minneapolis was at least the fifth death to result from the aggressive U.S. immigration crackdown the Trump administration launched last year.

The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired in self-defense as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Goodtried to run down officers with her vehicle. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said video of the incident showed it was reckless and unnecessary. It occurred as the federal agency escalates immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota by deploying an anticipated 2,000 agents and officers.

Last September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement fatally shot another person outside Chicago. Two people have died after being struck by vehicles while fleeing immigration authorities. And a California farmworker fell from a greenhouse and broke his neck during an ICE raid last July.

No officers or agents have been charged in the deaths.

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Cook from Mexico shot during a traffic stop

ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop Sept. 12 in suburban Chicago. Relatives said the 38-year-old line cook from Mexico had dropped off one of his children at day care that morning.

At the time, the Department of Homeland Security said federal agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who entered the country illegally. They alleged Villegas González evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle.

Homeland Security said the officer opened fire fearing for his life and was hospitalized for “serious injuries.” However, local police body camera videos showed the agent who shot Villegas González walking around afterward and dismissing his own injuries as “nothing major.”

Homeland Security has said the death remains under investigation.

Another shooting, this one non-fatal, occurred in Chicago last fall. Marimar Martinez survived being shot five times by a Border Patrol agent but was charged with a felony after Homeland Security officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. The case was dismissed after videos emerged that Martinez’s attorneys said showed an agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s truck.

Farmworker fell from greenhouse roof during ICE raid

Immigration authorities were rounding up dozens of farmworkers July 10 at Glass House Farms in southern California when Jaime Alanis fell from the roof of a greenhouse and broke his neck. The 57-year-old laborer from Mexico died at a hospital two days later.

Relatives said Alanis had spent a decade working at the farm, a licensed cannabis grower that also produces tomatoes and cucumbers, located in Camarillo about an hour east of Los Angeles. They said he would send his earnings to his wife and daughter in Mexico.

During the raid, Alanis called family to say he was hiding. Officials said he fell about 30 feet (9 meters) from the greenhouse roof.

The Department of Homeland Security said Alanis was never in custody and was not being chased by immigration authorities when he climbed onto the greenhouse.

Man struck on California freeway after running from Home Depot

A man running away from immigration authorities outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV while he tried to cross a nearby freeway on Aug. 14.

Police in Monrovia northeast of Los Angeles said ICE agents were conducting enforcement operations when the man fled on foot to Interstate 210. He was running across the freeway’s eastbound lanes when an SUV hit him while traveling 50 or 60 mph miles (80 or 97 kph). He died at a hospital.

The man killed was later identified by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez of Guatemala.

The Department of Homeland Security said Montoya Valdez wasn’t being pursued by immigration authorities when he ran.

Gardener from Honduras killed on Virginia interstate

A pickup truck fatally struck Josue Castro Rivera on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape immigration authorities during a traffic stop Oct. 23.

Castro Rivera, 24, of Honduras, was heading to a gardening job with three passengers when ICE officers pulled over his vehicle, according to his brother, Henry Castro.

State and federal authorities said Castro Rivera ran away on foot and was hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 264.

The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

His brother said Castro Rivera came to the U.S. four years earlier and worked to send money to family in Honduras.

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AP journalists Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed. Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.

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ICE STORM: AGENT KILLS AMERICAN

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ICE STORM: AGENT KILLS AMERICAN

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday during the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.

The 37-year-old woman was shot in the head in front of a family member in a snowy residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.

Her killing after 9:30 a.m. was recorded on video by witnesses, and the shooting quickly drew a large crowd of angry protesters. By evening, hundreds were there for a vigil to mourn her death and urge the public to resist immigration enforcers.

Crowds gathered in Minneapolis on Wednesday as they protested and held a vigil for a woman killed during the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown. (AP video shot by: Mike Householder)

The woman, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, had a 6-year old child, her mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune. Macklin Good described herself on social media as a “poet and writer and wife and mom” who was from Colorado.

Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear in the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer and there is no indication of whether or not the woman had interactions with ICE officers before the videos started. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop.

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In another video taken at the scene, a woman, who described Macklin Good as her spouse, is seen crying near the vehicle. The woman, who was not identified, said the couple had only recently arrived in Minnesota and that they had a child.

“Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a news conference in Minneapolis Wednesday evening.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”

In a social media post, President Donald Trump made similar accusations against the woman and defended ICE’s work.

Local officials dispute the narrative

Noem claimed the woman was part of a “mob of agitators” and said the officer followed his training. She said the veteran officer who fired his gun had been rammed and dragged by an anti-ICE motorist in June.

“Any loss of life is a tragedy, and I think all of us can agree that in this situation, it was preventable,” Noem said, adding that the FBI would investigate.

But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted Noem’s version of what happened as “garbage” and criticized the federal deployment of more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.

“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.”

“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.

AP AUDIO: Minneapolis mayor says ICE officer’s killing of a motorist was ‘reckless’ and wasn’t self-defense

AP’s Lisa Dwyer reports on a fatal shooting in Minneapolis by federal agents.

Shooting is fifth linked to crackdowns

The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the woman in Minneapolis was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.

The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Name said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.

A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovinoa senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.

“She was driving away and they killed her,” said Lynette Reini-Grandell, a local resident who was among those who filmed the shooting.

In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “ICE out of Minnesota” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.

Governor calls for calm

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He described the killing as “predictable” and “avoidable.” He also said like many, he was outraged by the shooting, but he called on people to keep protests peaceful.

“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said.

Minneapolis Public Schools canceled school, sports and activities for Thursday and Friday, saying in a statement that the decision was “due to safety concerns related to today’s incidents around the city.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone.

There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.

“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.

The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.

For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilize in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up very active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noisemaking devices to alert neighborhoods of any enforcement presence.

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Dell’Orto reported from St. Paul, Minnesota. Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas, Michael Biesecker In Washington and Jim Mustian in New York contributed.

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