Trump orders increased federal law enforcement in Washington DC to combat crime
Date: 2025-08-08T10:16:56.000Z
Title: White House ups federal law enforcement at tourist hot spots in Washington, DC
Content: Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I'm Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines from the day.
There will be increased presence of federal law enforcement in Washington DC, the White House announced yesterday, to combat crime for at least the next week.
It comes amid Donald Trump's suggestions that his administration could fully take over running the city, Associated Press reports.
'Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. 'President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.'
She added that the increased federal presence means 'there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in DC'.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining — but could face steep push back.
'We have a capital that's very unsafe,' Trump told reporters at the White House this week. 'We have to run DC.'
Trump's intervention follows an alleged attack on on a federal employee who worked for the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge).
In other developments:
Vice-president JD Vance kicks off a trip in the United Kingdom with a meeting with British foreign secretary David Lammy on Friday that will bring renewed scrutiny of Vance's sharp criticism of Britain and its governing Labour party. Vance, his wife, Usha, and their three young children are expected to land in London at the start of a trip that includes staying with Lammy at Chevening, the country residence used by the foreign minister.
The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and state house speaker Dustin Burrows have filed a lawsuit in Illinois to enforce arrest warrants against Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year's midterm elections. The civil petition was filed in an Adams county, Illinois, circuit court, about a four and a half hour drive from Chicago. More than 30 Texas Democratic members are named in the suit.
The Trump administration is doubling to $50 million a reward for the arrest of Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world's largest narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine. 'Under president Trump's leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in a video announcing the reward.
Israel's political-security cabinet approved a plan early on Friday to take control of Gaza City, a move expanding military operations despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating, almost two-year-old war. Far-right allies in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have been pushing for a total takeover of Gaza as part of his vow to eradicate Hamas militants, though the military has warned this could jeopardise the lives of remaining hostages.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran to serve out the final few months of a newly vacant seat at the Federal Reserve while the White House seeks a permanent addition to the central bank's governing board and continues its search for a new Fed chair. Miran, who has called for a complete overhaul of the Fed's governance, will take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.
Donald Trump will announce a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday 8 August, according to reports from both Reuters and CBS News. The respective leaders of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, will attend events at the White House tomorrow, despite decades-long tension between the two countries.
Donald Trump has said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader's refusal to meet Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dispelling speculation that direct talks between the two warring presidents were a precondition to a high-level US-Russia summit. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that Putin did not have to meet with Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet.
Donald Trump has called on Intel's chief executive to resign, alleging Lip-Bu Tan had ties to the Chinese Communist party, sending the stock of the US chipmaker falling. 'The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,' Trump posted on Truth Social about Tan. 'There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
a few seconds ago
- Daily Mail
Going down the tubes: London Underground rides from hell include naked man terrorising passengers, brazen drug use, sex assaults, poor hygiene and protesters taking over carriages
As the first of its kind railway, the London Underground has been famed for connecting one of the world's most iconic cities with speed and precision since 1863. From Chesham in Buckinghamshire all the way to Epping in Essex, the tube hurtles past landmarks like Big Ben and Buckingham Palace as it transports up to five million passengers every single day. With such immense numbers travelling through such a densely populated city every day, probability suggests that some crime may occur - no matter how many measures are implemented to stop it. But offences on London 's red, white, and blue carriages have grown - sparking potential fears among commuters and tourists looking to get from A to B. Between January and August last year, a total of 16,288 crimes were reported on the tube - up 13 per cent on the same period in 2023. Data compiled by the Daily Mail earlier this year further laid bare the scale of such growing levels of lawlessness on the Underground - notably since Sir Sadiq Khan took office as Mayor of London in 2016. The curve of the graph revealed that the rate of crime on the tube was actually declining in the seven years after 2009, hitting its lowest crime rate of 7.3 per million passenger journeys just before Sir Sadiq landed the role. And while figures for crime on the Underground spanning this year is not yet available, a wave of disturbing footage of brazen criminal activity on the tube in recent years has raised cause for concern about what they might reveal. As recently as Thursday this week, behaviour on the Underground shocked millions of people across the world after footage emerged of a man dropping his trousers in a packed carriage which contained women and children. Irate commuters quickly turned on the passenger as he refused to pull his bottoms up on the District line in east London at around 3.30pm on August 7. The suspect, who was seen wearing headphones, visibly caused panic when he began yelling as the train travelled between Upton Park and East Ham. He then dropped his trousers and put his belt around his neck. His bottom and genitals were on show, sparking anger around him on the train. A passenger stood up and when confronting him, said: 'You need to get off the train.' But the flasher began yelling back: 'f*** off', repeatedly. The commuter said in response: 'What do you mean f*** off. You need to get off the f***ing train. Now. There are kids on here.' With the train busy with children on their summer holidays from school, passengers took matters into their own hands and removed him from the tube. The man at the centre of the incident has been detained under the Mental Health Act and police are investigating. A group carried him off the train and pinned him there, waiting for help to arrive The Daily Mail also revealed London's most dangerous tube and train stations earlier this year. More than 4,100 crimes were recorded in 2024 at King's Cross St Pancras alone, one of the capital's busiest terminals. This is more than any other station on TfL's entire network. However, when taking passenger numbers into account, the most dangerous station is Poplar on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), near Canary Wharf. Statistics collated by the British Transport Police (BTP) and TfL show 46 crimes were committed at the stop on the self-driving line last year. This equated to a rate of 58.7 offences for every million passengers. It was followed by Cockfosters, the northern terminus of the Piccadilly line, with 57.4 crimes per million passengers, and then King's Cross St Pancras with 51.4. Since Sir Sadiq became Mayor in 2016, Tube crime rates have more than doubled, from nine per every million journeys to more than 21 last March. Similarly, offences have risen on the Overground, DLR and Elizabeth line, which opened in 2022. The Mail's analysis comes after shocking statistics laid bare the ever-worsening crime epidemic plaguing commuters - who have fallen victim to violent, racist and sexual assaults. One recent instance of such behaviour on the tube occurred when Mansoor Ahmed, 30, sexually assaulted two women while in the Underground. He was last month jailed for 26 months and placed on the sex offenders register for a decade. He assaulted the first woman while walking up the stairs at Gloucester Road station on September 6, 2020 and just a few months later on November 20, he assaulted another woman who was walking down the steps at Charing Cross. Jaya Pathak, who campaigned for more action against sexual harassment on the tube after she was assaulted last year, told the Daily Mail that the situation has been 'getting worse'. Ms Pathak, 27, was harassed by a man who continually starred at her for several stops, then 'pretended to be drunk' and rested his head on her shoulder on a Victoria line train to Walthamstow last April. 'He tried to make it look as if he was nodding off as an excuse to touch me, when I pushed him off, he laughed it off and kept starting again,' said Ms Pathak, who works in foreign policy. She said that the man even beckoned to her to get off the train at Blackhorse Road, the stop before she was due to get off at the end of the line. As the station was platform was virtually empty at the terminus, she felt unsafe as no staff could have been there to put a stop if things turned sour. Ms Pathak called for TfL to staff emptier end-of-line stations as a deterrent to would-be sexual predators, who may not act if someone else is watching. In another shocking violent incident against females, one woman was whipped in the face with a belt in an attack at Green Park station last January. Liban Ahmed, who handed a suspended 18-month prison sentence for the attack, was caught on film shouting as he moved up and down the platform, trying to avoid two men trying to grab him. In a fit of rage, the 27-year-old lashed out with his belt, catching a woman trying to board the train. Concerns have grown further than violence in recent months too, after the Daily Mail exclusively revealed a video of a passenger openly smoking crack cocaine on an Underground tube. The incident occurred during rush hour when the passenger who captured the footage noticed other commuters hurriedly moving away from a man sitting across from him on the Tube. Initially assuming the man might be homeless and people were simply avoiding the smell, the passenger was horrified when he realised the individual was attempting to light up crack cocaine in full view of fellow passengers. 'I was travelling back from work during a busy(ish) hour when I became aware that a number of people before me had started to get up and move away before what was normal for the next stop,' the commuter, who wished to remain anonymous, said. 'I looked up and saw a dirty, scuffy-looking man opposite me and I initially thought that he was homeless and that other people were moving away because he smelt bad or something before realising that he was behaving oddly and attempting to light a small, metal pipe. 'Thinking he was just drunk, I said "Dude, no- you can't do that here" before I recognised that he was attempting to light up some crack.' The shocking sight comes amid growing concern about rising crime levels on the Tube and on the capital's streets Yet another shocking incident occurred in February 2024 when homeless man Brwa Shorsh, 24, pushed an innocent stranger, Tadeusz Potoczek, onto the tracks at Oxford Circus underground station just seconds before the train pulled in. Mr Potoczek had been hurrying home to catch a flight and was looking at the arrivals board when he was attacked in what prosecutor Sam Barker described as 'the thing of nightmares'. The Kurdish migrant had claimed he'd targeted the 60-year-old in 'revenge' after thinking Mr Potoczek had given him a 'dirty look'. Fortunately Mr Potoczek, a postman, missed the electrified rail and was helped back onto the platform by a passer-by who rushed to his aid. The driver had put on the emergency brake and his train was just four seconds away from hitting the victim. Shorsh had denied trying to kill his victim and claimed he did not know a train was arriving at the time. But in July that year he was found guilty of attempted murder by a jury at Inner London Crown Court after just 32 minutes of deliberations and he was jailed for life with a minimum term of eight years. Furthermore, a shocking machete attack at Edgware Road last November saw ambulance crews called to save a man who had been stabbed multiple times. A teenage boy, 17 was arrested and pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place, and affray. The attacker, dressed in grey sweatpants, a black hoodie and wearing a balaclava, was seen in footage with an enormous machete at the entrance to the station. As an eyewitness films the vicious stabbing, the attacker can be seen making several attempts to swipe at someone laying on the ground. After the attacker finally runs away, the camera moves in closer to reveal a man injured holding his side. In the background, a staff member for Transport for London can be seen walking towards the injured victim. A spokesperson from British Transport Police said: 'Following a stabbing at Edgware Road underground station on 19 November, a boy aged 17, has pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place, and affray. 'A second boy, also aged 17, has pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon in a public place. Both are due to appear for sentencing in February.' Concerns over racially abusive behaviour also grew when, in December 2022, a woman launched a racist tirade at a passenger on the Jubilee line - before later blaming a 'spiked drink' for her behaviour. Janice Wilding, 49 from Lambeth, south London, could be heard saying: 'Don't f***ing bring my mother into it. Because I'll rip you apart b***. 'I will rip you apart. Because you're black and you think you're big innit [sic]. Shut your f***ing mouth'. As she continues on her tirade, other passengers can be seen gathering around her to hold her back, pleading: 'Please get off the train'. The defence is met with hostility, as Wilding yells at them: 'Get your f***ing hands off of me. She's a f***ing n****'. One woman then successfully escorts Wilding off the train, as she continues to yell expletives from across the carriage. The video, taken by a witness, was shown to police following the incident. After being reviewed, officers recognised Wilding from an incident at a hotel earlier the same day and she was arrested in January 2023. Witness Ms Rose recalled being on a 'fairly busy' carriage where 'clearly drunk' Wilding called other passengers 'boring' for not joining her songs then threatened to put them on YouTube, said prosecutor Edmund Blackman. One woman was 'particularly uncomfortable' with being filmed and tried to grab Wilding's phone when she pointed it at her, triggering a wave of racist abuse. Wilding said to the Black woman 'Where the f**k you come from?' and 'Go back to Africa, you don't belong here'. When the victim got up to move away, Wilding lunged at her and threw a punch but missed. Another passenger intervened and blocked the route, but Wilding carried on trying to hit her whilst screaming more abuse, the court was told. She was given a 12 month community order and 100 hours of unpaid work.
The Guardian
12 minutes ago
- The Guardian
A ‘bias monitor' for CBS News is a bad idea. Here's why
For years before I became the public editor at the New York Times, I admired the work of journalists doing the job of holding their own newsrooms accountable to high standards. And when I heard that CBS News would get a position something like that, I thought – briefly – that this could be a positive development. After all, the network's credibility and independence has come under fire after its parent company settled a frivolous lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. Paramount Global, the CBS parent company, was bashed for capitulating to political pressure in order to get federal approval for a merger with another media company. I quickly changed my mind once I learned the details. This is not a traditional ombudsman but what some have dubbed a 'bias monitor' who will receive and evaluate claims of bias in the network's journalism and report on them to the corporation's president. Appointing such a person was part of the FCC's recent approval of Paramount's merger with Skydance. Other conditions included agreeing to Trump priorities such as rooting out diversity programs. The new job 'seems designed to ensure little critical is aired about the current administration', said Glenn Kessler, the longtime Washington Post journalist and editor of the Fact Checker, who is now writing a Substack newsletter. Kessler also noted that the Trump-appointed FCC chair, Brendan Carr, in commenting on the new position, compared it to the creation of an ombudsman decades ago when General Electric bought NBC. But that regulator was designed to ensure NBC's editorial independence and to guard against interference from the new owner, a business conglomerate. In sharp contrast, Kessler told me, this 'newfangled ombudsman suggests CBS will not have independence from political interference'. Public editors are there to serve the reader and to provide transparency and accountability. It's to the Guardian's credit that it maintains a 'readers' editor'; NPR boasts a similar position. Elisabeth Ribbans recently unpacked how the Guardian handled a controversial story about a malnourished child in Gaza; Kelly McBride examined complaints that NPR had failed to give sufficient coverage to anti-Trump demonstrations. But many news organizations have terminated the role, sometimes stating that it is redundant since social media gives voice to critics. I never bought that explanation. Public editors can do something that even the most impassioned outside critics can't do – get response from internal decision makers, consider all points of view, and publish their conclusions on the very site in which the journalism originally appeared. Decades ago at the Washington Post, Bill Green did an exemplary investigation of how the paper came to publish 'Jimmy's World' – a fabricated story about an eight-year-old heroin addict. The Post gave him free rein and then published his 18,000-word findings over several pages. At the New York Times, Clark Hoyt wrote columns criticizing the overuse of anonymous sources and considering complaints about how the Jerusalem bureau chief's son had served in the Israeli military. Job requirements for public editors, therefore, include fairness, independence and a thick skin. The Times position was sometimes called 'the worst job in journalism' because you were often writing something that would tick off your newsroom colleagues. That didn't scare me. When I heard, in 2012, that the Times job was going to be open, I applied and got the gig. My nearly four years weren't easy, but I had the great advantage of a publisher – Arthur O Sulzberger Jr – who believed in the role and supported my work. The best part by far was hearing from Times readers how much they appreciated the opportunity to be heard, and to understand what was going on behind the scenes. I always felt I reported not to the newsroom editors, or to Sulzberger, but to the Times readership. I was disappointed when the paper – on the verge of getting a new publisher in Sulzberger's son – decided to abolish the role in 2017. By then, I had settled into my new job as Washington Post media columnist; there was no ombudsman there any more. The Post had ended that role a few years earlier. In both cases, I thought it was a loss for readers, for credibility and even for the papers' own staffs, who often appreciated the work, especially when they weren't the ones under the magnifying glass. It's simple, really. As journalists, we hold others to account. A good public editor can do the same for the newsroom itself. But a 'bias monitor' set up in a highly politicized environment – as part of corporate maneuvering to clear the path for a merger – is not designed to continue that tradition. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Reuters
30 minutes ago
- Reuters
Lula and Putin discuss peace in Ukraine before US summit
BRASILIA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday for about 40 minutes, the Brazilian presidential palace said, adding that Putin shared information about his discussions with the United States and "recent peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine." The leaders also discussed their cooperation in the BRICS group of emerging countries and "discussed the current international political and economic scenario," according to the statement. The conversation with Lula is the latest of a flurry of calls between Putin and foreign leaders in recent days ahead of the Russian president's expected meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump next week. Putin spoke to the leaders of China and India, both also part of the BRICS group of developing nations, and other presidents from Central Asia and Europe on Friday to brief them on his contacts with the United States about the war in Ukraine. Lula has been in a public spat with Trump since the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on the imports of Brazilian goods, which Trump linked to an alleged "witch hunt" against his ally and Brazil's former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. U.S. imports of some Brazilian products, such as orange juice and aircraft, received a lower rate. Lula told Reuters on Wednesday he planned to call the leaders of the BRICS countries, which also include South Africa, to discuss a joint response to Trump's tariffs on U.S. imports. The Brazilian leader spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Trump has threatened BRICS nations with additional 10% tariffs last month, as the group gathered in a summit in Rio de Janeiro in July.
